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Vol. Ill, No. 4 July, 1918 

Smith College Studies 
in History 



JOHN SPENCER BASSETT 
SIDNEY BRADSHAW FAY 

Editors 



NORTHERN OPINION OF APPROACHING 

SECESSION 
Oaober, 1859-November, 1860 



By LAWRENCE TYNDALE LOWREY 



NORTHAMPTON, MASS. 

Published Quarterly by the 
Department of History of Smith College 

Entered as second class matter December 14, 1915, at the postofflce at 
Northampton, Mass., under the act of August 24, 1912. 



SMITH COLLEGE STUDIES IN HISTORY 

JOHN SPENCER BASSETT 
SIDNEY BRADSHAW FAY 

EDITORS 

The Smith College Studies in History is published quarterly, in 
October, January, April and July, by the Department of History of Smith 
College. The subscription price is one dollar and a half for the year. 
Separate numbers may be had for fifty cents (or one dollar for double 
numbers). Subscriptions and requests for exchanges should be addressed 
to Professor Sidney B. Fay, Northampton, Mass. 

The Smith College Studies in History aims primarily to afford a 
medium for the publication of studies in History and Government by 
investigators who have some relation to the College, either as faculty, 
alumnae, students or friends. In aims also to publish from time to time 
brief notes in the field of History and Government which may be of 
special interest to alumnae of Smith College and to others interested in 
the higher education of women. Contributions of studies or notes which 
promise to further either of these aims will be welcomed, and should be 
addressed to Professor John S. Bassett, Northampton, Mass. 



SMITH COLLEGE STORIES IN HISTORY 
VOL.1 

No. 1. "An Introduction to the History of Connecticut as a 

Manufacturing State" Grace Pierpont Fuller 

Nos. 2, 3. "The Operation of the Freedmen's Bureau in South 

Carolina" Laura Josephine Webster 

No. 4. "Women's Suffrage in New Jersey, 1790-1807" 

Edward Raymond Turner 

"The Cherokee Negotiations of \822-l823" . .Annie Heloise Abel 

VOL. II 

No. 1. "The HohenzollERN Household and Administration in 

THE Sixteenth Century" Sidney Bradshaw Fay 

*No. 2. "Correspondence of George Bancroft and Jared Sparks, 

1823-1832" Edited by John Spencer Bassett 

*No. 3. "The Development of the Powers of the State Ex- 
ecutive IN New York" Margaret C. Alexander 

*No. 4. "Trade of the Delaware District Before the Revo- 
lution" Mary Alice Hanna 

VOL. Ill 

No. 1. Joseph Hawley's Criticism of the Constitution 

OF Massachusetts Mary Catherine Clune 

No. 2. "Finances of Edward VI and Mary" .. .Frederick Charles Diets 
No. 3. "The Ministry of Stephen of Perche During the 

Minority of William II of Sicily John C. Hildt 

* Double number. 

TERV, DURHAM, 



Vol. Ill, No. 4 July, 1918 



Smith College Studies _ 
in History tttT 



JOHN SPENCER BASSETT 
SIDNEY BRADSHAW FAY 

Editors 



NORTHERN OPINION OF APPROACHING 

SECESSION 

Oaober, 1859-November, 1860 



By LAWRENCE TYNDALE LOWREY 



NORTHAMPTON, MASS. 

Published Quarterly by the 
Department of History of Smith College 



iWoniPTgch 



, LlZZ 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

CHAPTER I 
After the John Brown Raid 191 

CHAPTER n 
Responsibieity for John Brown Raid and for Southern 

Secessionism 213 

CHAPTER III 
The Political Convention of 1860: A Breach in the 

Democratic Ranks 228 

CHAPTER IV 
Before the Election of Lincoln 242 



errr 
fircy ? is;,. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



The four chapters included herein cover only the period from 
the John Brown raid through the presidential election of 
1860. These are to be the opening chapters of a longer work — 
Northern Justification of Secession, from the John Brown Raid 
to the Fall of Fort Sumter — which I am preparing as a doctoral 
dissertation in Columbia University. My use of the word "North- 
ern" in the title is not precise, as opinions are given only from 
New England, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, except 
in a few cases where outside opinions are approved in these local- 
ities. My reason for treating these States only is that another 
writer is soon to issue a monograph covering similar views in 
vvhat was known as the Northwest, including the States from 
Ohio westward. 

Although the incidents treated in this essay may fairly be con- 
sidered as a distinct phase of my general subject, two difficulties 
have been encountered, for which I must ask toleration and 
patience of the reader: first, closing the discussion with what 
would be Chapter IV of the larger work gives the matter a 
rather abrupt ending ; second, in this partial treatment full justice 
cannot be done to all the sources quoted, mainly because some of 
the republican newspapers later opposed the use of force to hold 
States in the union — as is foreshadowed in the latter part of this 
discussion — and almost all of the democratic journals came fin- 
ally to an ardent support of the government in preserving the 
union. This will be shown with some fullness in later chapters 
of my larger work. 

The use of italics and capitals for emphasis in the quotations 
in every case follows the original. 

L. T. L. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession, 
October, 1859-November, 1860 



CHAPTER I 
After the John Brown Raid 

The most influential abolitionist newspaper ever published in 
this country, The Liberator, was founded in 1831. Less than ten 
years after that, one of its readers, John Brown, told his family 
that the sole purpose of his life was to make war by force and 
amis on African slavery in the southern part of the United 
States.^ In 1859, Brown planned to seize the national armory 
and arsenal in the little village of Harper's Ferry, Virginia, to 
arm all the negro slaves in the vicinity, and to help them gain 
their freedom. He, therefore, secured a fund of several thous- 
and dollars from sympathizers in the North, with which he pur- 
chased a large supply of weapons. On the night of October 
16, 1859, Brown, with eighteen heavily-armed followers, seized 
the armory and arsenal and took several prominent citizens of 
Harper's Ferry as hostages. By the morning of the 18th, militia 
companies from neighboring towns, aided by armed citizens and 
a small force of United States marines, had killed ten of the 
party of nineteen, and captured five, including Brown himself. 
The other four escaped. Of the citizens, militia, and marines, 
five were killed and nine wounded. 

It would be impossible to describe the full efifects of this 
event on the minds of the people of Virginia, and, indeed, of the 
whole South. The raid had been a total failure so far as free- 
ing the slaves was concerned, since the few to whom weapons 
were given declined to use them against their masters, and were 



* Most of the facts regarding the raid are taken from J. F. Rhodes, 
History of the United States from the Compromise of 1S30, vol. ii. See 
also, John Brown, 1800-1859, a Biography Fifty Years After, by Oswald 
Garrison Villard. 



192 Smith College Studies in History 

glad to be allowed to return unhurt to their homes. But how 
wide-spread was the conspiracy? Who had furnished the money 
and weapons? Who had inspired the attack? Were any promi- 
nent persons implicated? To what extent did the people of the 
North approve of such an expedition? These and numberless 
similar questions occupied the minds of the white men living in 
the slave-holding States. The "irrepressible conflict" so forcibly 
presented by Senator Seward had entered a new phase. 

The news of this most spectacular of all attempts to liberate 
the slaves had not reached the farthest bounds of the nation be- 
fore the press, the pulpit, and the platform were ringing with 
condemnation or praise of the band of would-be liberators. 
There was unanimity on this point only : the plan by which 
Brown and his followers had hoped to accomplish so much w^as 
foredoomed to certain failure ; for it was an attack not only upon 
the State of V'irginia, but upon the national government as well. 

The only persons who offered unbounded praise were the 
abolitionists. Most of the republicans — of whom there were 
none in the far South and but few in any slave-holding State — 
condemned the whole scheme ; but scattered throughout the 
North, especially in New England, were found other persons 
who honored the attackers as highly as abolitionists honored 
them. The members of the democratic party everywhere were 
as strong in their censure as the abolitionists in their approval, 
though many democrats, especially in the North, opposed slavery 
itself as much as anyone. But they did not approve of the 
methods used by abolitionists and by some republicans who wish- 
ed to get rid of it in the States where it existed. Besides, 
all shades of opinion were held by persons belonging to none of 
the political parties mentioned. - 



^ The principal political beliefs of the time were, briefly, as follows: 
The republicans maintained that the national government had a right to 
interfere in the territories to preven-t slavery, and that this prerogative 
should be exercised in the broadest manner ; the democrats were di- 
vided : those who shared the view of Senator Stephen A. Douglas, of 
Illinois, in his "Freeport Doctrine," that Congress could not force slavery 
upon a territory against its will, were commonly known as anti-Lecomp- 
ton democrats; and the Lecompton democrats — a name derived from 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 193 

Few truths in American history are better known than the 
fact that in States in all parts of the nation, from Washington's 
administration to Buchanan's, threats had been made to secede 
from the union or to nullify law^s of congress. Per'haps the 
chief instances of a threatened withdrawal were : the New Eng- 
land States at the Hartford Convention in 1814; Massachusetts 
alone, in connection with the annexation of Texas ; and a num- 
ber of southern States at the Nashville Convention in 1850. 
Among the leading examples of nullification and defiance were: 
the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798-9; Pennsylvania's 
refusal to carry out orders of the supreme court in 1808; South 
Carolina's opposition to the tariff laws, 1828-33 ; Georgia's repu- 
diation of United States Indian treaties, 1828-32 ; and Wisconsin's 
resolution, through her legislature in 1859, that the supreme 
court should be defied. As Charles Francis Adams pointed out 
in a recent lecture before the University of Oxford, "Evidence 
. . . is conclusive that, until the decennium between 1830 and 
1840, the belief was universal that in case of a final, unavoidable 
issue, sovereignty resided in the State, and to the State its 
citizens' allegiance was due."^ 

Even as late as 1860, one of the most common ways of re- 



those who supported President Buchanan's policy of admitting Kansas 
as a slave State under a constitution made at Lecompton, Kansas — held 
with the republicans that congress might interfere in the territories 
with respect to the status of slavery, but, as against the republicans, that 
under the constitution the interference should be to uphold slavery in- 
stead of to prevent it. A fourth and evanescent political division was 
known as the constitutional union party ; it had no platform other than 
"The constitution, the union, and the enforcement of the laws." Most 
of the abolitionists, in 1860, voted with the republicans. The expres- 
sion, "the opposition," in this work will be used to refer collectively to 
the chief opponents of the republicans ; that is, to all the democrats 
together with the constitutional-unionists. 

^ C. F. Adams, Trans-Atlantic Historical Solidarity, p. 45. Sec tlie 
following by Senator Henry Cabot Lodge : "It is safe to say that there 
was not a man in the country, from Washington and Hamilton, on the 
one side, to George Clinton and George Mason on the other, who regard- 
ed the new system [i. e., the nation as established under the Constitution] 
as anything but an experiment entered upon by the States, and from which 
each and every State had the right peaceably to withdraw, a right which 
was very likely to be exercised." The Americana Encyclopaedia, in 
article "Confederate States of America." 



194 Smith College Studies in History 

ferring to the United States was to designate it as "the Con- 
federacy," indicating thereby the behef that what we now think 
of as a nation was only a kind of league, or an alliance. Just 
after South Carolina had passed her ordinance of secession, for 
instance, a resolution introduced in the New York State As- 
sembly at Albany, looking to the appropriaton of ten million 
dollars to arm the State, contained the words, "the United States 
of the Confederacy."-* A considerable proportion of the news- 
papers in the North at some time during 1860 made use of the 
same expression. 

There was no novelty, therefore, in statements in many 
Southern newspapers, during the weeks immediately following 
the John Brown fiasco, that the Southern States should consider 
the expediency of withdrawing from the union. They argued 
somewhat as follows: For thirty years the abolitionists have 
kept up an unceasing warfare upon our domestic institutions; 
even twenty years ago such persons were rare in the North, but 
they are now numerous, and their numbers are increasing with 
alarming rapidity; their emissaries in the South have scattered 
abolition literature among our slaves, in some cases urging them 
to murder their masters if necessary to effect their escape, and 
by means of the Underground Railway they have caused us to 
lose many thousands of dollars worth of property in slaves; 
they refuse to allow our servants to accompany us into Northern 
States, and deny that slave-holders have the same right to take 
their slave property into the common territories as Northern 
people have to take their property there ; when our slaves escape 
into free States, they are seldom returned in accordance with 
the fugitive slave law, but are frequently aided in evading cap- 
ture; we are abused and denounced in the strongest language be- 
cause we are slave-holders ; our territory is invaded and our 
peaceful citizens captured and killed; and now a great political 
party, whic'h originated little more than four years ago, and 
which countenances much of the above, has grown to such pro- 
portions that it controls most of the Northern States: if it 
'New York Weekly Day-Book, January 5, 1861. 



Northern Opinion of xA.pproaching Secession 195 

should gain the presidency a year hence, would Southern States 
not be justified in seceding? What would be the answer of the 
North? 

To the "disunion sentiments" of the newspapers in the 
South were soon added messages of a number of governors in 
that section to their legislatures, and after the opening of con- 
gress on December 5th some of the more ardent Southern sena- 
tors and representatives still further voiced the opinions of their 
constituents, to the effect that in certain contingencies their 
States should no longer remain in the union. 

Northern replies to this can be divided into no precise cate- 
gories, largely because the thinking on the subject was every- 
where confused and in the same observers varied greatly from 
time to time. But immediately after the John Brown raid, repub- 
licans almost solidly denounced such expressions on the part of 
the South. Some denied strenuously that there was ground for 
'complaint or for secession; others made light of the whole af- 
fair, ridiculing the South, and declaring that threats of dissolv- 
ing the union were only repetitions for political effect of cries 
which they had frequently heard before ; while still others some- 
times more or less ironically expressed a willingness to see the 
dissenting States withdraw. 

The editors of the Providence Daily Journal and the New 
York Evening Post are fair examples of republicans who were 
at this time unequivocally opposed to secession. The Journal, 
though not approving of John Brown, held throughout the month 
of December, 1859, that the South was altogether wrong in its 
position regarding a dissolution of the union, and on the follow- 
ing January 9th said that the North was firmly resolved to hold 
all the States in the union. The Post was convinced that the 
Southern members of congress meant nothing by their disunion 
speeches,^ and spoke of their proposals as advising "treason."*' 



'January 11th. 
'January 14th. 



196 Smith College Studies in History 

Remarks by the republicans in the congress then in session were 
much along the same line.'^ 

Representing those who were inclined to ridicule and defy 
the South was the New York Tribune, edited by Horace Greeley, 
and incomparably the most influential republican newspaper of 
the time. It claimed, and probably had, the largest circulation 
in the world, ^ and was a tremendous factor in national politics 
throughout the administrations of Buchanan and Lincoln. It 
said in an editorial of January 5, 1860: 

It is striking how gentle the fire-eaters" have become since the Re- 
publicans have caused it to be understood that they do not think Vir- 
ginia ought to have a monopoly of the hanging of traitors. It is per- 
haps as well, however, for them to understand that the future Republican 
administrators of Federal power will not try and execute the Democratic 
Disunionists, who may hereafter fall into their hands, with the indecent 
haste exhibited by Virginia in the case of John Brown." 

The Tribune soon^^ joined the Post in accusing of treason those 
who advocated disunion if a republican should be elected presi- 
dent. These ideas are also to be found in a number of other 
republican papers, for the news stories and the editorials of the 
Tribune were frequently copied by smaller journals.^ ^^ 

Admitting as true the doctrine of the "irrepressible conflict," 
other republicans were not averse to allowing the Southern States 
to withdraw, at least in certain contingencies. Next to the 
Tribune, perhaps the most influential republican paper in New 
York was the Times. Its editor, Henry J. Raymond, in a 



'£. g., see speeches by G. W. Scranton and J. H. Campbell, both of 
Pennsylvania. Congressional Globe, January 11th. 

* On January 2nd it claimed a daily circulation of 39,000; semi- 
weekly. 22,500; weekly, 181,000; edition for California, 4,500; total, 
247,00b'. 

'A name frequently applied by extreme Northern men to extreme 

Southern men. 

" Brown was hanged on Deceml)er 2, 1859. 

"January 19th. 

"" Several times in November and December the Tribune had ex- 
pressed similar sentiments. The Pittsburgh Evening Chronicle, Decem- 
ber 10th; Newburyport (Mass.) Herald, December 3rd; and the Potts- 
ville (Pa.) Miners' Journal, December 10th and 17th, are among those 
holding southern tlireats in derision. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 197 

speech^^ at Troy, N. Y., — after wondering whether or not the 
old feeling of good-will would ever be restored between the 
North and South — said if this could not be brought about, "then 
sever the Union as soon as you please. Nobody cares for a 
Union that gives us none of the blessings which the Union was 
designed to secure for ourselves and our posterity. (Ap- 
plause.)" A month later he said in an editorial that it was per- 
haps not unconstitutional for one State at a time to withdraw 
(which was the method finally pursued) just so it did not cove- 
nant with others to do so.^-^ A republican ex-governor of Con- 
necticut, Henry Button, was still more willing to see the South 
depart. He said in a letter at this time, "If J knew that by voting 
for Seward, or Chase, or Banks, or any other man whom I re- 
garded as most worthy to fill the Presidential chair, the whole 
South would secede and dissolve the Union, I should not hesitate 
a moment to vote for him."^"* 

'-December 28th. Reported in Times, January 2nd. Raymond had 
formerly been lieutenant-governor of New York. 

"January 30th. Its exact language was: "It may be that in adopt- 
ing the Constitution of the United States, no State surrendered its right 
•to withdraw when it pleased; or it may not be; but this much is certain, 
that in agreeing to abide by the provisions of the Constitution . . . 
each State has expressly agreed not to leave the Union in compact in 
concert with others. She may possibly have the right to go out alone, 
but she certainly has not the right to make preparations to have others 
go out with her. If Virginia thinks she can do better by going into busi- 
ness on her own account, it must be on her own account solely, and not 
in partnership with other malcontents." At intervals, however, the 
Times seemed to agree with the Evening Post. Before this, in the same 
month, it said that secession was only another name for revolution, and 
on February 8th spoke of Sam Houston's declaration that there was no 
abstract right of peaceable secession as "well-timed." 

See the Utica (N. Y.) Observer and Democrat, a strong democratic 
paper, which on December 13th criticized the Albany Evening Journal, 
republican, for saying on December 3rd, "When a Republican President 
is elected, those who wish to go out of the Union can do so," and for 
then changing its position within three days and declaring that all re- 
publicans believed this union "must and shall be preserved." The Ob- 
server expressed the hope that the Journal might prove its belief in the 
latter doctrine by ceasing its "unprovoked war upon the Southern 
States." 

" Newark Evening Journal, Deceml)er 16th. The Buffalo Commer- 
cial Advertiser, which supported Lincoln in 1860, but claimed in 1859 to 
be an "American" paper, agreed at tliis time witli some of the most 



198 Smith College Studies in History 

There are numerous evidences that during these same months 
many persons in the North preferred a dissolution of the union 
to a continuation of slavery. ^^ The Trenton True American 
said, for example. (December 5th), "We see Northern fanatics 
and demagogues calling upon the South to withdraw, and telling 
it that 'the offer of a separation in serious earnest would meet the 
hearty response of millions.' " On January 24th, a letter^*' was 
written to Senator Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, by D. 
Lee Child, of Way land, in that State, in which he said, "If our 
Southern associates, or any portion of them, ivill take themselves 
off, I think they ought to have full permission to do so. I should 
consider it not a loss but a relief." He went on to say that 
formerly he was ardently, nay superstitiously, devoted to the 
union, but that he had changed his mind since seeing tliat it 
was a source of power to "slave-breeders," and had come to the 
conclusion that "no empire exists wdiich would break up so readi- 
ly as this confederacy." George S. Boutwell, a former governor 
of Massachusetts, wrote the same senator three days earlier 
that "the great question is not the existence of the Union, but 
the preservation of the institutions of freedom."^" 

The question of "coercion," or forcing a State to remain in 
the union against the will of its people, was little discussed at 
this time as compared with a year later. But there were some 
persons, chiefly democrats, who, like most of the religious press 
late in 1860, while disregarding the question of a constitutional 
"right of secession," thought that if an effort should be made on 



strongly anti-republican journals. It questioned (December 21, 1859) : 
"If the South, having a majorit}- of the electoral votes, should exclude 
all save slave-holders from the Presidency, and should elect such a 
slaveholder by their exclusive votes, thus practically shutting out the 
North from a share in the National Government, would the North sub- 
mit to it?" Its reply w^as : "This — mutatis mutandis — is what the 
Republican party proposed to do in 1856, and what it again proposes 
to do in 1860. Will the South submit to it? If so, then it is a com- 
munity of doughfaces. There is no such thing as an equal partner- 
ship with the rights, privileges and profits all on one side." 

'^ Many of these were of uncertain political alignment. 

" Sumner manuscripts, Harvard Library. 

" Ibid. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 199 

the part of any State to withdraw, no physical force should be 
used to prevent it. One of the chief reasons for this was the 
belief that to compel a Southern State to continue as one of the 
United States was impossible, in view of the fact that both Eng- 
land and France might intervene to prevent the subjection of 
the South. IS 

Some others thoug'ht the nature of American institutions 
forbade coercion. "Where force is required to keep one-half 
the States in union with the other half, the thing desired to be 
preserved is no longer worth it. The union of these States must 
rest upon the common interests of all sections, and upon the 
consent of the several States."i» Former United States Senator 
George Evans, of Maine, said in a speech at Bangor that the 
union would never be preserved by force of arms, and that he 
trusted the North would "never be so crazy" as to keep the 
Southern States at all "if that prove to be the only mode by which 
they can be held. If they go, in God's name, let them go in 
peace."2o Likewise, a New York committee-^ in December, 
1859, declared : 

It is often said that the Union can and will be preserved, by force if 
necessary. Does anyone believe that a permanent union between two 
hostile powers can be preserved by force? How long before the re- 
quired force would become a despotism? No generous heart would 
wish for, or tolerate such a union. Ours is a union of friendship as 
well as common interest, and like all other friendships, its very essence 
is free will.'"'^ 



"Adams, op. cit., pp. 71-77. 

" Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, November 16, 1859. 

"^Portland (Me.) Eastern Argus, November 16, 1859. 

^'This committee was appointed at a meeting held in the Academy of 
Music, December 19th, which nominated General Winfield Scott for 
president and Sam Houston for vice-president. New York Times Janu- 
ary 12th. 

"^The Albany Atlas and Argus and the Pittsburgh Daily Post, both 
strongly democratic, held opinions similar to this. Thus the Post, Janu- 
ary 7th said: "No drop of blood must be shed in the effort to keep the 
Northern and Southern sections of these States under one government 
. ... All thoughtful men are settled in the belief that if disunion 
must come, it must be peaceful, and, to some extent, deliberate. In any 
partnership or association, the consent of associates is essential to the 
continuance of the compact, and each partner has a sovereign control 
over his own property. . . . The Soutliern people liavc not presumed 



200 Smith College Studies in History 

The members of the "opposition" — besides those w'ho de- 
manded that there should be no coercion — may be divided 
roughly as follows: those who regarded secession as a majority 
of the republicans viewed it, firmly denying that such a right 
existed; a larger number who maintained that under certain 
conditions secession would be justified ; and others who believed 
that the South had ample cause for withdrawing when it saw 
fit. There was so much shifting of opinion that it is at times 
impossible to place persons or newspapers in any fixed group. 
No attempt will be made, therefore, to distinguish precisely be- 
tween those in the second and third divisions just mentioned, for 
the reason that so many seem to have been first in one, then in 
the other. All, however, were in favor of keeping the union 
intact, the plea of these two last classes being simply that if 
Southern States should secede, right or justice would be on 
their side. 

The Rochester Union and Advertiser illustrated the attitude 
of those agreeing with the most numerous group of republicans 
when it said that Senator Iverson, of Georgia, might "talk of 
secession," but that there were enough Northerners who believed 
in the constitution to "put down or hang up" those who might 
''attempt to act it."23 The Hartford Weekly Post believed that 
the South had "no cause to court disunion," and sternly reproved 
South Carolina for its disunionism; but it held that the South 
might demand of the North a maintenance of all its constitu- 
tional rights, for an "infraction of those rights is of course in it- 
self a dissolution of the Union. "-^ Similarly, the Philadelphia 
Press, although having an "ardent sympathy for our Southern 
people, thus unwarrantably and insanely assailed" at Harper's 
Ferry, considered secession a "mad hope," and spoke of dis- 



to tell us how to manage our internal concerns. The whole trouble, as 
we take it, comes from the fact that we are determined to manage theirs 
and our own also. ... If the South resolves to leave the Union, 
she will go because the North denies her rights which were granted her 
when the original compact was entered into." 

"^January 12th. 

"'* December 17th and 24tli. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 201 

union movements as "treasonable."-^ In congress, the position 
of the anti-Lecompton democrats was almost identical, as may 
be seen in a speech by John Hickman, of Pennsylvania, in the 
house of representatives. He said: "If dissolution means that 
there is to be a division of territory, by Mason and Dixon's line, 
I say 'no ;' that will never be. . . . the North will never 
tolerate a division of the territory." The same sentiment ap- 
peared in the remarks of Horace F. Clark, of New York, who 
resolutely denied the right of a State to dissolve the union when- 
ever its people were "disaffected or in passion or alarm."-''' 

Some of the leading journals which later supported the con- 
stitutional union candidates were of the same temper. The New 
York Evening Express, for example, stated: "There can be no 
peaceable disunion, and. . . Southern rights can be main- 
tained, and Southern wrongs redressed much better within tlie 
Union than out of it;" and the Charleston Nexvs was taken to 
task for distinguishing between secession and revolution : "What 
is the use, then," asked the Express, "of theoretic chop logic upon 
the difference between secession and revolution, when both 
practically, amount to, and mean, the same thing?"-" The Bos- 
ton Courier also denied the right of a State to secede, believing 
"the deliberate consent of the whole to be necessary to resolve 
into its original elements that 'Perfect Union,' to which all in- 
dividually and collectively agreed." It concluded, however, that 
there was no longer any cause of serious division between the 
South and the North. ^s 

A number of things influenced the members of the "opposi- 
tion" who believed that in certain circumstances States would 
be justified in a separation from the union, and who offered 
arguments to vindicate the position so strongly maintained in 
the South. Of these influencing causes, probably the most irri- 
tating to the slave-holders was the continuous expression of 
strong admiration for John Brown and his band. True, most 

^'November 15th, December 23rd. 

'" Congressional Globe, December 12th, December 21st. 

''January 10th. February 11th. 

■* December 22nd. 



202 Smith College Studies in History 

people in the North indicated disapproval of the attack upon 
Harper's Ferry, but very many of these same persons expressed 
the highest regard for the personal courage and ultimate pur- 
pose of the invaders. This feeling, however, was confined 
almost altogether to abolitionists and republicans — even those 
vv'ho believed Brown's mind was affected frequently managing to 
commend him. The entire South considered reprehensible in the 
extreme such assertions as the following from republican papers 
appearing on and subsequent to the day Brown was hanged : 

"From that gallows [Brown's] will rise ten thousand John 
Browns, to haunt and harass, by night and day, the cowardly 
and shameless defenders" of slavery. — Kingston (N. Y.) Demo- 
cratic Journal, December 7th. 

"Legally a criminal, morally he appears to have been as spot- 
less as a lamb." "The great world wept over the dead body of 
John Brown," — Newburyport (Mass.) Daily Herald, December 
3rd and 5th. 

"He is an indication of the onward progress of x-\bolition 
feeling in the country; he is a genuine hero. God bless Ossa- 
watomie29 Brown." — Springfield (Mass.) Re public an. '^'^^ 

"Every republican naturally sympathizes with John Brown." 
— Independent Democrat, Concord, N. H. 

"We honor him; we applaud him." — Winsted (Conn.) 
Herald. 

"Today, the noblest manhood in America swings off the 
gallows of a felon." — New York Tribune. 

"John Brown meetings" were held in various parts of the 
North to commemorate his exploits and render expressions of 
sympathy, while at some places salvos were fired in his honor. 
Not all republicans, however, approved of such proceedings. 
The Hartford Courant, for instance, adtnitted : "Brown was 
righteously hung, and. . . anybody who chooses to follow in 



^ A Kansas town in which he resided for a time. 
'"This quotation and the next three are quoted from the Providence 
Post, March 22, 1860. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 203 

his footsteps should be burned at the stake, over fagots of 
green wood."^^ 

The Boston Courier sounded the keynote of those opposing 
praise of the raiders: "The insurrection at Harper's Ferry was 
something," it held; but it was "nothing in comparison with the 
outrageous and abominable comments which it has called forth 
from a portion of the New England press and the New England 
pulpit. These have awakened the deepest and most pervading 
indignation throughout the South; and it is perfectly natural 
that they should have done so."^- 

To counteract the influence upon the South of these meetings 
commending the efforts of Brown, "union meetings" were held 
in many Northern cities in order to assure the people of the 
South that they had numerous friends in the North who were not 
"abolitionized," and that they meant to stand by the constitution, 
especially with regard to those provisions which allowed the 
holding of slaves and provided for the return of fugitives. Thus 
they hoped to preclude efforts to withdraw, and so to save the 
union. The participants in those meetings included a few 
republicans and all other classes save abolitionists. Most re- 
publicans claimed that the gatherings were only ruses to win 
votes for the democrats. Meetings held in Boston, New York, 
and Philadelphia were typical. Of these three, the most moder- 
ate was in Boston, held in Faneuil Hall on the morning of De- 
cember 8th. Presided over by ex-Governor Levi Lincoln, its 
vice-presidents included four other former governors of- the 
commonwealth, and Mayor F. W. Lincoln, Jr., of Boston. The 
presiding officer, not overlooking various unjust aggressions 
which he believed the South had committed against the North, 
heartily scored Brown and his sympathizers — as did the resolu- 
tions passed by the meeting — promising at the same time fidelity 



'* Taken from New Haven Daily Register, December 22nd. 

'^ December 7tli. On the 3rd, the Courier suggested that its own 
State give Virginia twenty thousand dollars to help pay the expenses 
she incurred on account of Brown, and a week before that it declared 
that the public meeting in Boston sympathizing with Brown did the city 
injustice because most Bostonians did not approve of his course. 



204 Smith College Studies in History 

to the constitution and all parts of the union, but believing that 
nothing- could be gained by disunion. Moderate speeches were 
made by several prominent men, including Edward Everett. The 
most vigorous address of the day was made by Caleb Cushing. 
The meeting at Philadelphia was held December 7th. Some 
of the more strenuous upholders of the democratic party thought 
the resolutions hardly strong enough. The latter, as well as the 
orators of the occasion, condemned in particular the personal 
liberty bills passed by certain Northern legislatures seemingly in 
contravention of the fugitive slave law. The resolutions were 
said to "embody the sentiments of a vast majority of the citizens 
of Philadelphia."33 

The most enthusiastic meeting of the three was in New 
York, held in the Academy of Music on December 19th. The 
strongly "pro-Southern" tone of some of the proceedings here 
may be seen from extracts from two of the principal speeches. 
The first was by General John A. Dix, who about one year later 
became post-master general of the United States. He said : 

Let us change positions with our Southern brethren . . . tliey 
find emissaries from the North coming among them to sow the seeds 
of dissension in their famihes, to incite their slaves to insurrection, to 
break up their homes, destroy the value of their property, and put their 
lives in peril. Is there a man within reach of my voice who can find 
fault with them for any measure of resentment with which these ag- 
gressions are repelled? ("No, no.") Would we ourselves submit to 
them peaceably, if our places were reversed? ("No, no.") No, fellow- 
citizens, they are wrongs not to be patiently endured — wrongs under the 
sting of which even the horrors of disunion may be fearlessly encount- 
ered as an alternative, with which, if all else be lost, honor and self- 
respect may be preserved. (Applause.)'^ 

The Other was by Hon. Charles O'Conor, a leader of the 

New York bar.^^ He declared : 



'^ The Christian Observer, a Presbyterian weekl}', December 15th. 
This paper, the editor of which was born and reared in New England, 
said, December 1st, that John Brown was "the most reckless midnight 
assassin known in this country." Many members of the religious press 
were strongly against Brown, e. g., the Christian Register and the Re- 
corder, both published in Boston, and the Philadelphia Presbyterian. 

^* Official Report of the Great Union Meeting, Academy of Music, 
Decemher 19, 1859. Pamphlet in Columbia University Library. 

^The Worcester (Mass.) Aegis and Transcript, an intensely re- 
publican paper, referred to him (November 10, 1860) as "a man of great 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 205 

If we continue to fill the halls of legislation ,with abolitionists, and 
permit to occupy the executive chair public men who declare themselves 
to be enlisted in a crusade against slavery, and against the provisions 
of the Constitution which secure slave property, what can we reasonably 
expect from the people of the South? . . . 

I do not see, for my part, anything unjust, anything unreasonable, in 
the declaration of Southern members [of Congress]. ... If the 
North continues to conduct itself in the selection of representatives in 
the Congress of the United States, as, perhaps, from a certain degree 
of negligence and inattention, it has heretofore conducted itself, the 
South, I think, is not to be censured if it withdraws from the associa- 
tion. What must we sacrifice if we exasperate our brethren of the 
South, and compel them, by injustice and breach of compact, to separ- 
ate from us and dissolve the Union P"^" 

The republicans were inclined to scoff at the "union-savers." 
"W'liy hold meetings at the North?" they asked. "No one is in 
favor of disunion 'here; the traitors are all at the South." Re- 
plying to this question, the Utica (N. Y.) Observer and Demo- 
crat claimed that it was 

just so before the American Revolution. The Englishmen's Government 
oppressed the colonists; but no one in Great Britain was in favor of a 
dissolution of the union, and those who remonstrated against the injus- 
tice and aggressions of England, and threatened if it were continued to 
dissolve the connection, were denounced as traitors! Tyrants are every- 
where the same . . . our Northern Abolition-Republican tyrants be- 
lieve the South cannot be driven out of the Union. Every man of sense, 
however, knows that here at the North is the place to save the Union. 
The wrong is here — so is the danger — and so must be the remedy. The 
North must stop its impertinent intermeddling with what is none of 
its business ; and then, and not till then, we will have peace and fra- 
ternity of feeling between tlie States." 

ability and high character for business, integrity, and social respectabil- 
ity." His fellows of Irish descent seem to have approved his course. A 
few weeks after the meeting, February 4th, the New York Irish-Am- 
erican displayed his portrait, saying, "Our people are proud of him as 
a noble scion of their ancient stock." On December lOtli preceding, the 
Irish- American had called Brown a "blood-stained bandit," and con- 
demned those who made him "the patron of a political creed antagonistic 
to the very existence of the Republic." 

^*From Echoes of Harper's Ferry, by James Redpath, pp. 286-287. 
Not all of the speeches were of this tenor. Some of the speakers 
thought disunion unjustifiable in any case. 

"' December 20th. This article was copied with evident satisfaction 
by the Keene (N. H.) Cheshire Republican, January 11th. Cf. Hart- 
ford Times, January 3rd : "When we at the North learn to mind our 
own business, and let the South manage theirs, then, and not till then, 
will sober reflection teach them [the Soutlil tlicir true interests." 



206 Smith College; Studies in History 

A part of the North was denounced, both in and out of con- 
gress, for alleged outrages committed against the slave-holding 
States. Some blamed abolitionists and republicans^^ in general, 
while others believed only a few of them should be held respon- 
sible; that the "madness and fanaticism" of these few, however, 
were endangering the union ; that "the continued assaults, the 
incendiary and blasphemous speeches" by this minority, and their 
attempts to stir up insurrection among the negroes, had led many 
in the South to believe the "endurance of such insults and 
wrongs" was "no longer tolerable. "^^ 

A hundred quotations might be given from these critics show- 
ing that they believed the South was not uneasy without cause. 
For example, the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett's 
paper, which claimed, and probably had, the largest daily circula- 
tion within New York City, pleaded thus : "Let the honest men 
of the North reflect that the war which Seward, Helper, Sher- 
man, and the example of John Brown, are preaching, is a war 
against the lives, homes, and dearest interests of the men of 
the South, and then ask themselves the question as to what 
would be their course in case a similar vituperative, agressive 
and destructive war were anywhere preached against them."-*^ 
The New Haven Daily Register, after showing that great efforts 
were being made in the North to "create a general unfriendly 
feeling against the South," continued : 

Is it not strange, Reader, that the stability of this Union should be 
endangered, from no greater cause than a neglect of what is sometimes 
called "the eleventh commandment," viz : "Mind your own business !" 
All the trouble grows out of a persistent interference in tlie slavery 
question, by people of the free States, who are in no way responsible 
for its existence, and in no way injured by it ! . . . The South makes 
no attack on our institutions ! it does not fail in fulfilling its obligations 
in the Union ! it desires to live with us in peace, minding its own busi- 
ness, and not interfering with ours — if we will permit it! It seems to 
us the most wilful, the most blind, perverse and foolish conduct, that 
ever children were guilty of!" 



^* See next chapter. 

'' Philadelphia Dollar Nciuspapcr, December 7th. 
^"January 21st. For Helper and Sherman, see Chapters II and III. 
"December 5th, December 13th. Cf. Columbian Weekly Register, 
New Haven, December 24th : "Tlie Hartford Press . . . publishes 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 207 

The opinion of the prominent New York Journal of Com- 
merce was similar : 

Having roundly abused them [the southerners] for minding their 
own business and refusing to take our advice, and, by way of convinc- 
ing them of our sincerity and earnestness, encouraged the stealing of 
their negroes, and running them of? to Canada or harboring them among 
ourselves, until the Southern people became indignant at the outrage, 
and threaten, if we do not let them alone, to separate from us, so that 
they may live in peace and quiet, we now, — i. e., the Abolition and Re- 
publican press and people of the North — turn round and charge upon 
them the evils which threaten the Union, and tell them that if they will 
only keep quiet while we stir up insurrection at the South, and steal or 
run ofif negroes, the Union will be in no danger/" 

Besides the editors there were numerous defenders of the 
South. In the national house of representatives, Daniel E. 
Sickles, a democrat from New York, remarked that "the Con- 
federacy" was in the presence of the most serious danger that 
had ever menaced it ; that the chief danger lay in the North, be- 
cause there the weapons were made which threatened lives in 
Southern homes; and that the North was responsible for the 
existence of a great sectional party which menaced in its con- 
sequences, if it did not assail in its platform, the peace and tran- 
quillity of the Union by its representatives proclaiming "war 
upon one portion of the Confederacy." He thought, however, 
that the South had vastly overestimated the ill-feeling of the 
North toward it.^-'' Thomas B. Florence, a Pennsylvania demo- 
crat, said before the same body that the Southern representa- 
tives, in his judgment, were simply repelling aggression; for the 

a list of Southern members of Congress, whom it calls disunionists — 
from the fact that they say their constituents will not desire to stay in 
the Union, when they become satisfied the North is determined to with- 
hold from them their constitutional rights, or continue their systematic an- 
noyances on the slavery question ! The Press pretends to great surprise 
at such declarations, and would give it the force of opposition to the 
Union! when, in fact, it is only saying to such journals as the Press, 
'your infamous conduct, in slandering our people, stealing our negroes, 
and canonizing John Brown, satisfies us that you will not let us live in 
peace with the North !' That's all." 

^-This is quoted from the Bangor (Me.) Daily Union, December 
28th, The opinion of the UniGii was (December 24th) that the people 
of the South had been "for years outraged in their property and po- 
litical rights by aggressions of the most aggravating nature." 

*^ Congressional Globe, December 13th. 



208 Smith College Studies in History 

South was on the defensive.^"* Similarly, John C. Lee wrote 
Robert C. Winthrop, from Boston, saying that while he thought 
the South had become insolent and insulting, yet he believed that 
it "had a right to complain of our impertinent interference with 
slavery."'*^ 

During the latter part of 1859 and the early part of 1860, 
there was also evident another contention which persisted for 
more than a year ; that is, that those Southerners who advocated 
the withdrawal of their States from the union were not neces- 
sarily as guilty of "disunionism" as those who had driven them 
to defend this position. "Disunionism is of two characters," 
said a constitutional unionist : "one, in words and wind, such as 
we have from 'the political democratic negro,' down South — an 
annoying, fretting, but harmless Disunionism ; and the other, 
in acts — annoying, fretting, but not harmless — such as we have 
from the North." For example, "The runners of the Under- 
ground Railroad, North, are DISUNIONISTS. . . in acts. 
The contributors of the money for that purpose are DIS- 
UNIONISTS. . . The upholders of John Brown. . . . 
are DISUNIONISTS. The aiders of and abettors of treason are 
traitors, as well as the traitor himself. "•^'^ In answering the 
question, "Which are the disunionists?" a democrat asserted that 
the real disunionsts were those who proclaimed the war and urg- 
ed it on, and they were the men to be denounced by patriots, 
instead of those who said they would not "submit to such 
trampling upon their rights. "■*''■ The Utica Observer and Demo- 
crat, after assuring the "calumniators of the South" that the 
people there were as loyal to the union as any in the nation, and 
that they would not secede until, exhausted by insult and aggres- 
sion, forbearance had ceased to be a virtue, went on to say that 
the disunionists were not those who threatened, if the compact 
entered into was not observed, to withdraw from the confeder- 



*' Ibid., December 30th. 

*^ February 7th. Winthrop manuscripts, Massachusetts Historical 
Society. 

^^ New York Evening Express, January 12th. 

*' Portland (Me.) Eastern Argus, December 23rd. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 209 

ation; and that if the South should leave, "it might with truth 
be said it had been driven out of the Unioii."*^ 

Although from the adoption of the constitution there had 
existed among persons throughout the nation a belief in the right 
of a State to withdraw from its fellows, certainly among a ma- 
jority of the people for a good many years before 1860 the word 
"disunionism" had carried a stigma. The effort, therefore, on 
the part of some persons, to free from the opprobrium of the 
term those whom they considered in the right, was but natural. 
Only five days after John Brown was executed, it was declared 
that in the South open and avowed disunionists had multiplied 
by hundreds in a fortnight. The chief complaint was that 
the North, instead of rejoicing that the South had escaped "the 
perils of a bloody, servile insurrection," expressed sympathy 
only with "those who came among them to rob and murder ;" 
that in the place of fraternal feeling, they received "from the 
North only hate, denunciation, and injury;" and so, concluded 
this writer, the South had decided that a union which was fruit- 
ful of such an unfriendly attitude was not worth having.^*^ As 
early as November 19th the Norwich, Conn., Weekly Aurora 
deemed it certain that the Southern people could not bear much 
longer the pressure that was applied to them; saying they would 
be cowards if they should continue to submit to the abuse and 
attacks of persons so encouraged at the North ; and that they 
had a right to demand to be let alone, or they could not be blamed 
for seceding. 

A further justification of disunionism was given by the 
Pennsyhanian — commonly known as the national "Administra- 
tion organ" of Philadelphia — to the effect that "opposition and 
hostility to the Union, the laws and the Constitution. . . . 
commenced and has been fostered in the North. The South has 
been loyal. . . But the North has within herself traitors, in- 



*' January 3rd. 

''Troy (N. Y.) Daily Whig, December 7th. The Whig, however, 
held agitators both North and South guilty, but showed at the same 
time that in the North those who preached "the gospel according to 
John Brown" rode topmost on the popular wave. 



210 Smith College Studies in History 

cendiaries, and promoters of riot and anarchy. . . The issue 
is then with the North. "^•^ And the same journal said later: 
"If disunion sentiments have been engendered, if disunion threats 
have been made. . . the object is plainly, evidently to pre- 
serve rights, guard institutions, protect life, and insure peace.''^^ 
In the senate, also, Mr. Bigler, democrat, of Pennsylvania, said 
that if the South should denounce any Northern law or institu- 
tion as many Northerners had denounced the South and slavery, 
the North would perhaps go to even greater lengths in repelling 
such humiliating interference.^- And the North was told that 
the people of the South could not and would not be "compelled 
to remain parties to a contract in which might overrides right. "^^ 
There were those in the North, moreover, who were even less 
restrained in their justification of Southern disunionism. In 
many parts of New England even there were persons who gave 
up all thought of apologizing for those whom they conceived to 
be advocating with justice a withdrawal from the union. "The 
Southern people are not going to submit to these indignities any 
longer," proclaimed the Manchester, N. H., Union Democrat 
on December 27th ; "They are disunionsts, as we should have 
been long ago, under one half the provocation we have heaped 
upon them. . . if the Southern States should secede tomor- 
row, the judgment of impartial history will justify the act. The 
blame is not with those who strike, but wit'h those who provoke 
the blow." The Boston Post quoted from a speech made in 
1858 by Jefferson Davis before the legislature of Mississippi 
in which he advised that if an abolitionist be chosen president, 
Mississippi should provide for her safety outside of a "Union 
with those zvho have already sliozvn the zvill, and would have ac- 
quired the poiver," to deprive her of her birthright ; upon which 
the Post avowed that "if we loved Mississippi as we love Massa- 
chusetts ; if our family, our children, our hopes, our everything 
were all there, as they are all here; if we believed that any polit- 



^» December 5th. 

''February 10th. 

"^ Congressional Globe, December 14th. 

^ Pittsburgh Post. January 10th. 



Northern Opinion op Approaching Secession 211 

ical party were in possession of the Federal Government to do 
what it may well enough be supposed in the South that republi- 
cans would do in relation to slave institutions . . . then would we 
do and say what we have quoted Jefferson Davis as doing and 
saying."-''^ The Portland, Me., Bastern Argus, after showing the 
reasons for the disunionism of Southern members of congress, 
proclaimed that there was not one republican "possessed of a 
particle of manhood and the least sense of honor" who, if the 
case were reversed, would not be a disunionist in the same 
sense :^° "We have not a word," it declared, "to say against the 
position of men, who calmly, deliberately announce that, when 
they have to choose between subjugation and dishonor in the union 
on the one hand, and secession from it on the other, they shall 
choose the latter, we say we have not a word of denunciation for 
that position, for Heaven knows if the same alternative were 
presented to us our decision would be the same."'^^ 

But should an effort be made on the part of any State to 
leave the union, and that effort as many believed should result 
in civil war, what would be the position of those in the North 
who so stoutly upheld the justice of the Southern cause? Some 
of the bolder spirits did not hesitate to voice their opinion. The 
judgment of one Bostonian was that in suc'h a case the battle 
would not be between the two sections of the country, but, as 
hitherto, beween opposing forces at the North, and that the 
"battle-field would be the soil of New England, — not the terri- 
tory of the South. "^^ Just as Northern men and Southern men 
stood side by side in the struggle which established the union, so, 
it was said, they would stand again in any struggle "necessary 
in the maintenance of the rights secured to each member of the 
Confederacy by it."^^ Ex-President Franklin Pierce wrote Jef- 
ferson Davis that he did not believe a disruption of the union 
could occur without blood, but if fighting must come, it would 



December 23rd. 
December 19th. 
' December 23rd. 

Courier, December lOtli and 17th. 
Albany Atlas and Argus, December 6th. 



212 Smith College Studies in History 

not be along Mason and Dixon's line merely: "It will be within 
our borders, in our own streets. . . Those who defy law and 
scout constitutional obligations will, if we ever reach the arbitra- 
ment of arms, find occupation enough at home."^''^ And the 
"Republican-Abolition party" was warned that a war between 
the North and South was an impossibility until the democracy 
of the North was conquered by the sword/'*^ 



•'■''' Pierce papers, Library of Congress. Also published in Thomas 
Shepard Goodwin's Natural History of Secession, p. 308. 
"" Philadelphia Pcnnsylvanian, November 26th. 



CHAPTER II 

Responsibility for the John Brown Raid and for Southern 

Secessionism 

Before John Brown made his raid into Virginia, probably 
not more than fifty persons besides his family and armed follow- 
ers knew where the blow was to fall, and perhaps not more 
than a thousand had reason to suspect that he intended to at- 
tack slavery by force in any part of the South. ^ It were folly, 
therefore, to accuse any considerable number of persons of 
direct complicity in the plot. There was much questioning as 
to whether the responsibility should be charged to the account 
of anyone save these few, together with the abolitionists, who, 
as nobody denied, had for years been preaching a war against 
slavery to be carried on in any way that might be successful. 
Edward Everett, candidate for vice-president on the constitu- 
tional union ticket in 1860, thought, however, that the attempt 
on Harper's Ferry was a natural result of the anti-slavery agi- 
tation, which had for years been carried on.^ Some held "Kan- 
sas Screechers," Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher "and 
Company," and "Northern agitators generally" to responsibility. ^ 
But United States Senator Henry Wilson, a zealous Massachu- 
setts republican, only ten days after the capture of Brown, in a 
public address in the city of Syracuse, New York, proclaimed 
that "The Harper's Ferry outbreak was the consequence of 
the teachings of Republicanism."-* If all republicans had agreed 
to Wilson's statement, this chapter would have been unneces- 
sary. The Boston Courier,^ constitutional-unionist, however, 
arraigned Senator Wilson as an abolitionist, and thought a vast 



'Rhodes, op. cit., II, 391. 

''In a letter to Robert C. Winthrop, November 13, 1859. Winthrop 
papers, Massachusetts Historical Society. 

' B. g., Hartford Post, October 29th. 

"Bellows Falls (Vt.) Argus, November 10th; Hartford Weekly 
Post, November 12th. 

^January 7th and 9th. 



214 Smith College Studies in History 

majority of republicans were by no means accomplices in the 
insurrection. 

But most members of the "opposition" did not pass over 
the incident so lightly. In the first place, there was the Helper 
book : The Impending Crisis of the South : How to Meet It, 
written by Hinton Rowan Helper, a native of North Carolina, 
who had lived in various places outside of that State for some 
years previous to 1860. The main purpose of the work was to 
show that slavery was fatal to the interests of the non-slave- 
holding white men of the South. The facts were in the main 
correct, but the arguments based on them and especially its 
recommendations for war upon slavery and slave-holders were 
in the highest degree offensive to the South. The book was first 
published in 1857, but it attracted little attention until 1859, 
when a great impetus was given to its circulation by the written 
approval of sixty-eight republican members of congress, and 
numerous other influential men of that party; and thousands 
of dollars were contributed toward the publication of a com- 
pendium of its contents for gratuitous distribution as a repub- 
lican campaign document. Senator Seward, of New York, 
and Horace Greeley were two of its most prominent indorsers. 
Among the statements of the compendium which were most 
odious to Southerners were (p. 113) : ''We believe it is, as it 
ought to be, the desire, the determination, and the destiny of 
this [the republican] party, to give the death-blow to slavery"; 
(p. 204) "Not to be an Abolitionist, is to be a willful and dia- 
bolical instrument of the devil. "*^ 



"This compendium contained 214 pages. It recommended, in addition: 
"Ineligibility of Pro-slavery Slaveholders — Never anotlier vote to any- 
one who advocates the Retention and Perpetuation of Human Slavery. 
No Co-operation with Pro-slavery Politicians — No Fellowship with 
them in Religion — No affiliation with them in Society. No Patronage 
to Pro-slavery Merchants — No Guestship in Slave-waiting Hotels 
— No Fees to Pro-slavery Lawyers — No Employment of Pro-slavery 
Physicians — No Audience to Pro-slavery Parsons" (p. 76). [To slave- 
holders] "Frown, sirs, fret, foam, prepare your weapons, threat, strike, 
shoot, stab, bring on civil war, dissolve the Union, ... do what 
j^ou will, sirs, you can neither foil nor intimidate us; our purpose is as 
firmly fixed as the eternal pillars of Heaven; we have determined to 
abolish slavery, and, so help us God, abolish it we will!" (p. 90). 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 215 

The party program of the republicans emphatically denied 
any intention of taking aggressive steps against slavery in the 
States. But, whether they had intended it or not, more than 
two-thirds of the republican members of the house of repre- 
sentatives had thus sanctioned interference in the domestic af- 
fairs of the slave-holding StatesJ The New York Herald con- 
sidered their indorsement "one of the most extraordinary reve- 
lations of a revolutionary design on the part of the leading 
abolitionists and republicans that has ever been brought to 
light in this country since the treason of Benedict Arnold was 
detected at Tarrytown" ; and described the signers, as "trait- 
ors to your duty as citizens, false to your oaths as rulers, and re- 
gardless of the rights of your brethren as men.''^ 

Many held that recommending such a bad book was not 
less than treason. The Impending Crisis was dubbed a "hand- 
book of treason" in which the South was "doomed to the hor- 
rors of civil war, and the slaveholders . . . held up to exe- 
cration as fit objects for extermination by the 'sword of the 
Lord and of Gideon.' "*^ It was called a "monstrous docu- 
ment" which recommended "the most treasonable demonstra- 
tions against the South. "^"^ Also, the compendium appeared 
almost simultaneously with the Brown raid, "as if it had been 
determined upon to carry its recommendations into immediate 



' Many republicans regretted that this had been done. For instance, 
in a letter written December 21, 1859, to Congressman John Sherman, 
W. W. Gitt, a New York republican, deplored this means of "spreading 
discord in the ranks of the party," and believed : "We can elect our 
candidates without offering any insult to the South." John Sherman 
manuscripts. Library of Congress. 

Von Hoist, sternly against slavery and always denying the riglit to 
secede, nevertheless says in his Constitutional and Political History of 
the United States, vol. vii, p. 15: "If the North was to be won over to 
views against the slave-holders in harmony with that [Helper's] tone, it 
was as inequitable as it was foolish to wish to preserve the Union under 
the present constitution. Whoever preached hatred of the slave-holders 
in this way must, in accordance with the requirements of logic, end in 
demanding the destruction either of the Union or of the constitution." 

* November 26th. 

^Somerset Messenger, Somerville, N. J., December 8, 1859. 

" Newport, N. H., Argus and Spectator, November 23, 1860. 



216 Smith College Studies in History 

effect. "11 Several newspapers agreed, after quoting some of 
Helper's most incendiary statements and giving the names of 
his congressional approvers, that with such an "array of treason 
against the State," it was not to be wondered at, that Southern- 
ers "should seek that respect out of the Union" which they 
could not enjoy in it.^^ 

Such statements as this last, condoning Southern secession- 
ism because of Northern support to Helper's suggestions, were 
by no means infrequent. The Boston Post, for example, con- 
tended that 

The Black Republicans under various names have been engaged for 
years in an aggressive warfare upon the South and its institutions with- 
out a particle of provocation. ... If the Black Republican members 
of the present Congress have declared that they will not co-operate with 
Southern members in doing the business of that body, that they will 
have no fellowship with them in religion, no affiliation with them in 
society, it is not surprising that some of the latter should arise in their 
places and declare that, in the event of a Black Republican president 
being chosen, the Southern States will concert measures to protect them- 
selves against further aggression. The real avowals of disunion, made 
by members of Congress . . . come from the Black Republican side 
in the indorsement of Helper.'' 

Circulating "Helper's book of curses" which charged that 
slave-holders were "worse than common thieves," was offered 
as proof that the very sentiments and principles of the repub- 
licans led inevitably to a breaking up of the union. i-^ In thus 
holding it immoral and disgraceful to recognize an institution 
upheld by the federal constitution, the republicans were denying 
the principle of the equality of the States, "at the risk of an al- 
most certain dissolution of the Union itself. "^^ 

There was an inclination on the part of some leading re- 
publicans to defend themselves against attacks made on them 
because of their having commended the opinions of Helper. 



" Ibid. 

'-E. g., Cheshire Republican, Keene, N. H., December 14th; Scranton 
Herald, quoted by Republican same day. 

" December 22nd. 

"Dover (N. H.) Gasctte, February 18, 1860. 

'"Speech by Hon. Robert Tyler, in Bucks County, Pa. Reported in 
Pittsburgh Daily Post, January 11th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 217 

Senator Wilson, one of his most prominent indorsers, declared 
before the United States senate that he never saw a man who 
did approve of all the sentiments in the book, and that it was 
through mistake that the objectionable views of the author were 
retained in the smaller edition. ^"^ In the house of representa- 
tives, however, John Cochrane, a democrat of New York, show- 
ed conclusively that the sixty-eight members had indorsed the 
entire Helper book and a "copious compend" in addition. It 
was Mr. Cochrane's opinion, therefore, that those whose names 
had been signed in approval of the work were largely respon- 
sible for events which merely carried out its teachings.^" 

In the judgment of many people throughout the nation, 
those who were capable of commending doctrines such as Help- 
er's should certainly be classed with the abolitionists, for, in- 
deed, the fiercest opponent of slavery could hardly conceive of 
more strenuous hostility to that institution than was presented 
in this book. It was therefore held by the upbraiders of the 
sixty-eight members of congress and the other public men who 
had given their approval, that the teachings of republicanism 
led inevitably to "rank abolitionism," and consequently to a 
dissolution of the union. ^^ Moreover, this conviction was 
strengthened by the fact that some prominent members of the 
republican party assumed that there was a "higher law" than 
the constitution, to be obeyed rather than that latter instrument 
in case of a clash between the two. Mr. Seward, at this time 
mentioned more freely than any other man of his party as a 
"presidential possibility," was a leading advocate of this theory, 
universally condemned by the democrats and by most other mem- 
bers of the "opposition." Certain it is that there were a great 
number of republicans whose views on the subject of slavery 
substantially coincided with those of the abolitionists. The re- 
publicans were not all abolitionists, said an opponent ; but the 
abolitionists were all, or nearly all, republicans. They were 



'" Congressional Globe, December 14th. 

"Ibid., December 20tli. 

"E. g., Monmouth (N. J.) Democrat, December 8th. 



218 Smith ColIvEge Studies in History 

not all Helpers and John Browns ; but the Helpers and John 
Browns were all, or nearly all, republicans.^^ 

Some were inclined even to identify these two parties: "All 
have heard of a distinction without a difference," said one, "and 
such a distinction cannot be more aptly illustrated than by the 
attempts that are made to draw a line between Black Repub- 
licans and Abolitionists. The parties are of the same com- 
plexion, and their designs are the same."2o Another said : "The 
people begin to see that this war upon the South HAS GONE 
FAR ENOUGH. . . . The people are arousing to the 
alarming aggressions and terrible doctrines of these Republican- 
Abolitionists."-! 

By certain members of the two parties themselves further 
color was given to the claim that they were actuated by sim- 
ilar purposes. The famous anti-slavery enthusiast, Gerrit Smith, 
for instance, wrote from Peterboro, New York, that the repub- 
licans there were nearly all abolitionists. ^^ it is not strange, 
therefore, that in a "John Brown meeting" at Peterboro, pre- 
sided over by Hon. James Barnett, a republican member of 
the New York legislature, resolutions should have been passed 
"unanimously and enthusiastically," advocating a course which 
was ardently defended by the abolitionists throughout the per- 
iod under discussion : 

Whereas, the dissolution of the present imperfect and inglorious 
Union between the free and slave States would result in the overthrow 

" Columbian Weekly Register, New Haven, December 15, 1860. 

'" Utica Observer and Democrat, December 13, 1859. The Observer 
further held that "the treatment of the South by a great party at the 
North is in violation of all laws of courtesy and kindness ; of political 
and Christian duty ; of good faith and constitutional obligation" ; and it 
rebuked the republicans for accusing the Southern States of treason 
merely for their remonstrance against insult, and for their resulting dec- 
laration that if the North would not treat them "as friends and neigh- 
bors, members of one common family, bound together by a sacred con- 
stitutional compact," they would be compelled to withdraw from all asso- 
ciation with the North. For, said the Observer, there could be no union 
between such persons and the people of the South. 

-' Hartford Daily Times, February 20th. 

-To Charles Sumner, July 17, 1860. Sumner papers, Harvard Uni- 
versity Library. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 219 

of slavery, and the consequent formation of a more perfect and glorious 
Union without the incubus of slavery; therefore, 

Resolved, That we invite a free correspondence with the disunionists 
of the South in order to devise the most suitable way and means to se- 
cure the consummation "so devoutly to be wished."^ 

The "opposition" press, moreover, teemed with quotations 
showing that many persons who, in 1860, were avowedly repub- 
licans, had before that date suggested secession as a means of 
settlement. The Concord, N. H., Patriot, for instance, gave^"* 
with grim pleasure a number like the following: 

"There is not a business man anywhere, who, if he had such 
a partner [as the South], would hesitate to kick him out at 
once and have done with him." — Benjamin F. Wade, Senator 
from Ohio. 

"Rather than tolerate national slavery as it now exists, let 
the Union be dissolved at once." — New York Tribune. 

"If the power of this Union be used to protect slavery, then 
let the Union slide." — N. P. Banks, Governor of Massachusetts. 



As has already been mentioned, however, during the months 
immediately following the Harper's Ferry incident, the repub- 
licans were almost a unit in opposition to the idea of secession. 
But certain of their opponents were not slow in giving expres- 
sion to their belief that the change of front on the part of those 
who had recently seemed to consent to a dissolution of the union 
was not without motive. The "opposition" was quite free in 
admitting that the republicans were at this time very generally 
opposed to disunionism. "No one supposes that the Black Re- 
publicans desire to withdraw froin the Union," acknowledged 
one democrat : "Their course is to abuse the South so that it 
cannot with self-respect stay in the Union, and thus throw the 
commission of the overt act upon that section." But the South 
would not be responsible, was the conclusion ; for to suppose 
that the South would "remain with us unless this 'irrepressible' 
war upon their rights" was stopped, was to expect something 



^ Pcnnsxlvaniau, January 13th; Nt)rwicli (Conn.) Aurora. January 
14th. 

"January 25th. 



220 Smith College; Studies in History 

of a partnership of States that would never be presumed of an 
individual partnership.--'^ It was maintained, furthermore, that 
the South was fully as loyal as the North;-*' that the South 
longed for peace and quiet; and that if the republican party 
would abandon the irrepressible conflict, repudiate Helper's book, 
acknowledge the equality of the States, and stop its "eternal 
din and clatter" against slavery, quiet would be restored in a 
moment. 2'^ The republicans cry out "Treason ! Disunion !" 
and are wonderfully devoted to the union; but suppose the 
South were stronger than the North and should say to the 
North, "We will plant slavery in New York and Massachusetts 
. an irrepressible conflict exists between the States. 
It is our mission to confer upon the benighted North the bless- 
ings of slavery." Then suppose the South should arm a band, 
invade Massachusetts, the South call the invaders brave and 
noble, and should commend a book urging violent attacks upon 
the North, "what would the North do under such circum- 
stances? Would she say that the spirit of the Constitution was 
observed by the South ; would she submit . . . or. . . . 
protest against the continuance of the Union upon terms of in- 
feriority and oppression?" The same writer concluded, "If the 
dark night of disunion ever settles upon this country, the abo- 
litionized Republicans will have to answer for it."-'* The Provi- 
dence Post, too, conceded that 

The shrewd Republicans do not threaten disunion or consent to it. They 
cannot bear the idea of it. They abominate it. And they tell us that 
disunion shall not be. But how do they propose to avoid it? Why just 
as some men would avoid a duel. "I call you a liar, a villain, a scoundrel, 
a coward, a cutthroat ; I spit in your face, knock off your hat, steal your 
coat, insult your wife. But don't talk of a duel to mc. If you send me 
a challenge, I will meet you at your door, and blow out your brains." 
This, if we understand the case, is the loyalty of Republicanism. . . . 
[The South] only says, "You of the North have trampled on our rights; 
we ask you to desist ; and if you do not, we propose to step out, and leave 
'the Union' to your own keeping." It seems to us that this is far more 
honorable, and far more loyal, than the aggressive policy of the Repub- 



^ Cheshire Republican. Keene, N. H., November 23rd. 
-* Philadelphia Dollar Ncivspapcr, November 16th. 
" Harrisburg Patriot and Union, December 9th. 
■^ Ibid., December 19th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 221 

licans, which first robs the South of the benefits of the Union and then 
threatens it with subjugation."" 

The very basis of this "RepubHcan abohtion party" was war 
upon the South. ^o If their doctrine meant anything it meant 
'disunion or a subjugation of the South. They might say that if 
the latter would only succumb to them, there was no need of a 
misunderstanding between the States ; but that could never be. 
"Hence their strenuous efforts to make the world believe that 
the burden of disunion" would rest upon the South. ^^ 

As frequently throughout 1860, Northern defenders of the 
slave-holding States endeavored to establish their claim that 
the action of the majority party in the North indicated that the 
republicans were in fact less opposed to a separation than the 
South. They showed that in criminal law, it was a well-settled 
fact that the party assaulted was justified in killing, when, in 
fear of great bodily harm, he had retreated to the wall : "The 
reverse of this rule is, however, claimed by the Republicans of 
the North. They insist upon the right to assault the life of the 
South in every imaginable way, but deny to her the right of 
resistance or avoidance, and when absolutely pressed to the 
wall they say, 'Peace, be still, or our eighteen millions will an- 
nihilate you.' "^- It was then declared that the South had 
reached that extremity, and that the republicans, fearing the 
consequences, feigned to believe the South was wrong in order to 
conceal the cause : "The North, as now represented, is prac- 
tically ... in favor of disunion." The j)oint was a simple 
one : the South, ruthlessly invaded in its rights, and its "very 
existence put in jeopardy," said it would not submit to the 
election as president of a well-known advocate of such injus- 
tice; "If there is treason or wrong in that, let the Black Repub- 
licans make the most of it. In point of fact, fJicy are the trait- 



"° November 16th. 

^" Boston Herald. Dcccm])cr 23rd. The Herald claimed on January 3rd 
to have a circulation more than double that of any other daily in New 
England. 

''Ibid. 

"This, and the next sentence, are from the Pe>nis\'!z'a>ua)t, January 
21st. 



222 Smith CoIvLEge: Studies in History 

ors — the real clisunionists, who by an unparalleled course of 
revolutionary and unconstitutional action, are driving the coun- 
try to disunion and ruin. The thing is too plain to admit of 
argument. "^^ And the republican members of the house of 
representatives were proclaimed "fit successors of their pro- 
genitors at Hartford. "^^ 

It has been stated above that few persons had either direct 
or indirect knowledge of the incursion into Virginia before that 
event occurred. But, aside from the causes of Southern discon- 
tent already mentioned, to what extent were the tenets of the 
republicans responsible for the raid? Most adherents of that 
party did not agree with Senator Wilson that the raid was a 
direct result of the doctrines taught by them ; but opinions on 
the question may be found expressed by almost any member 
of the "opposition" press. "The whole tendency of the teach- 
ings of the Republican press and orators," declared one, "has 
been for years toward insurrection and disunion. "^^ Efforts 
to implant and cultivate bitter political animosity against slav- 
ery could not fail "to incite suggestions of lawless and violent 
means for its extinction. "^'^ The extremes to which the South 
was being driven in retaliation were the result of "disloyalty 
to the letter and spirit of the Constitution, so characteristic 
of the Republican party. "•^' 

Few men at the time were so influential as Senator Stephen 
A. Douglas, of Illinois, who, at the head of the larger faction 
of the democratic party, was Lincoln's nearest competitor in 
the popular vote received in the presidential campaign in 1860. 
He was not the first to make such a statement as the following, 
found in his address to the senate on January 23rd : 

I have no hesitation in expressing my firm and dehberate conviction 
that the Harper's Ferry crime was the natural, logical, inevitable result of 
the doctrines and teachings of the Republican party, as explained and en- 



" Norwich (Conn.) Aurora, February 4th. 

" Pittsburgh Post, January 25tli. 

'^'^ Republican Farmer, Bridgeport, Conn., January 13th. 

^'Nciv Hampsirc Argus and Spectator, Newport, November 11th. 

" Harrisburg Patriot and Union, March 20th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 223 

forced in their platform, their partisan presses, their pamphlets and books, 
and especially in the speeches of their leaders in and out of Congress.'' 

This bold declaration by the famous senator led many of his 
admirers to signify their agreement. For instance: "They [re- 
publicans] embrace within their party and organization, as a 
very considerable part thereof, a party who by their teachings, 
their principles, and their means, incited and aided John Brown 
in his recent foray into Virginia, and who unite in lamenting 
his fate as that of a martyr, who died in a righteous and just 
cause. "^^ 

Nor were the democrats slow in pointing out which state- 
ments made by their opponents were sufficient to incite invasion 
of the slave-holding States. On the very day that Senator Wil- 
son made the admission in Syracuse, the New Haven Register 
gave more than two columns of quotations from leading repub- 
licans and abolitionists showing that Brown was undoubtedly 
carrying out their dogmas. The Utica Observer and Democrat 
declared that the public must judge how far the republicans 
were guilty as accessories; for they preached aggressions upon 
the South as a duty of the whites, and insurrection as a right 
of the slave. Quotations were then given from Senators Se- 
ward, Wade, and Wilson, Representative Burlingame of Massa- 
chusetts, George William Curtis, and others, showing that they 
believed in aggressions upon the South, and were not "abo- 
litionists," but republicans: "With such facts before us, it is 
undeniable that the disastrous and melancholy attempt at re- 
bellion and insurrection by Ossawatomie Brown and his asso- 
ciates, is the legitimate consequence of the teachings and agita- 
tion of the slavery question by the Abolitionists and Repub- 
licans for years past."-**^ It caused surprise that the moment a 
man actually commenced to carry out the program and princi- 
ples of the republicans, some members of the party should de- 
nounce iiim as insane. Statements of republican leaders them- 
selves, given in many papers of the time, "showed conclusively" 

'* Congressional Globe. 

^'Democratic Standard, Pottsville, Pa., January 28th. 

" November 1st. 



224 Smith Collegk Studies in History 

that they were among the "instigators, aiders and abettors of 
John Brown in his projected scheme."'*^ 

It is evident therefore that there existed a wide behef in the 
guilt of a large proportion of the Northern people in helping to 
incite fanatics to insurrection ; and, as has been shown, the 
echoes of Brown's rifles had hardly died away before there 
were in all parts of the South suggestions looking toward a 
withdrawal from the Union. But the foray into Virginia was 
in itself simply an incident : those who sympathized with the 
South knew that the reasons for the recent outburst of seces- 
sionism were far deeper. A greater cause was the "bitter and 
intensely malignant hatred which the Republican press and ora- 
tors" had been continually stirring up "against our Southern 
brethren."^- And in a speech before a democratic state con- 
vention at Reading, Pennsylvania, Hon. William Montgomery 
charged his opponents with "waging direct war upon the South- 
ern half of our confederacy," and with treating the national 
compact with contempt and trampling it under foot."*-" 

Another accusation brought against the republican party — 
and neither party was guiltless of such accusations — was that 
they would not agree to abide by the decision of the supreme 
court of the United States in the Dred Scott case, which de- 
clared that granting citizenship to negroes, and prohibiting the 
entrance of slaves into any of the common territories, were un- 
constitutional. The "opposition" could not see the consistency 
in republicans proclaiming that they were in favor of the union 
when they refused to uphold the authorized expounders of its 
constitution.'*^ One party or the other was wrong, it was 
agreed ; and as the court had decided the matter in favor of the 
South, it became the duty of the North to submit. If they did 
not, on them would "rest the responsibility of all the disasters" 
which would surely follow."*^ 



"Nashua (N. H.) Gazette, November 17th. 

"Ibid., February 23rd. 

"^ Pittsburgh Post, March 7th. 

"Bangor, Me., Daily Union, December 26th. 

^° Hartford Daily Times, February 7th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 225 

Believing as they did that the slave-holders had been thus 
imposed upon, many of their friends in the North continued 
to defend them in maintaining the possible expediency of se- 
cession. "We say if the South has any constitutional rights," 
asserted the Burlington (Vt.) Sentinel, "that they have been 
ignored or outraged, by all, or the majority of black republicans, 
and the South is beginning to wake up to the consequences (of 
which Harper's Ferry is but the initiation) and to say, 'our rights 
must be respected, if any we have, or the Union is of no value 
to us; if we have no rights, then of course the Union is not 
worth our troubling ourselves about!' This is the language of 
cool, thinking, conservative men."^*'" It was admitted that if 
the union was divided Southern men would do it; but, was the 
claim, it would be strange if they did not ; for "we have black- 
guarded them for years; we have passed laws nullifying a plain 
provision of the Constitution;-*^ we have sent Old Brown and 
his confederates to cut their throats; and we are industriously 
printing and circulating incendiary matter calculated to stimu- 
late more invasions ;" hence, for their withdrawal, they "will 
appeal to the world for justification. "^s 

Thus, it may be seen that in the North there were many 
people who endeavored firmly to vindicate what they consid- 

** December 23rd. 

" Meaning the clause for the return of fugitive slaves. 

*^ Union Democrat, Manchester N. H., January 24th. The Democrat 
explained a week later that secessionism was easy and irremediable 
when either section was ready for it. The Pittsburgh Post said again 
on December 21st that the republican party, "which has attempted, and 
is attempting, to trample on these [the South'sl rights, is wholly re- 
sponsible for the sentiments of disunion which exist in the South." It 
then asked another Pittsburgh journal if it expected people to be "vili- 
fied, abused, have their rights trampled upon, and their persons and prop- 
erty rendered unsafe, and yet maintain relations of 'peace and amity' " 
with those who outraged all that was dear to them. December 23 it 
said: "If the South leave the Union, it is because the sectional feeling 
of the North has driven them tlierefrom." 

The opinion of ex-President Franklin Pierce was analogous. On 
December 7th he wrote from Concord, N. H., to William Appleton and 
others, Boston: "Subtle, crafty men, who passing by duties and obliga- 
tions, habitually appeal to sectional prejudices and passions, by denounc- 
ing the institutions and people of the South and thus inflame the North- 
ern mind to the pitch of resistance to the clear provisions of tlie fuiuia- 



226 Smith College Studies in History 

ered proper complaints by the South. What was the position 
of these friends with regard to the probable future course of 
the Southern States? If their threats should materialize, whose 
would be the fault? More than a year before the South Caro- 
lina ordinance of secession, the Pcnnsylvanian alleged that the 
policy of the abolitionists was to irritate the Southerners into 
resistance, forcing them to arm and attempt actual secession, 
then to use the federal power to coerce them on the plea of pre- 
serving the union and of suppressing insurrection and rebellion 
against the laws; that if abolitionists alone had praised Brown 
there might be hesitancy in giving voice to fears for the future, 
but that sixty-eight members of congress indorsed a book which 
openly warred on slavery everywhere ; hence, it questioned 
whether, if all the Northern States should return republican 
majorities, the ties binding the two sections together would not 
be virtually dissolved and disunion pronounced thereby.'*^ Sev- 
eral journals agreed: "If disunion ever does come, it will be 
due to the teachings — the agitations — of the New York Tribune, 
and its echoes of the newspaper press of the North. "^*^ And 
Senator Bigler, of Pennsylvania, asserted that the repub- 
lican doctrine of an irrepressible conflict between the institu- 
tions of the States, their "constant resistance to the clear con- 
stitutional rights of the slave-holding States of the Confederacy, 



mental law — who under plausible pretexts addressed to those prejudices 
and passions, pass local laws designed to evade constitutional obliga- 
tions, are really and truly, whether they believe it or not, the men who 
are hurrying us upon swift destruction." Pierce Papers, Library of 
Congress. 

"December 7th and 19th. Similarly, tlie New York Herald, January 
12th, thought that the Northern incendiaries had succeeded in nothing but 
alienating the South from the North, and that if they should continue 
much longer they would cause "a practical, substantial severance of the 
Union ; rendering the future secession of the Southern States a mere 
matter of form." The Boston Post, December 2nd, declared it was not 
right to make the South choose between dishonorable submission to 
fanaticism and opposition by resistance; and added, "If the Union were 
to be dissolved tomorrow, the South would be the victim of the viola- 
tion of a public compact by an oppressive majority." 

'"Bellows Falls (Vt.) Argus, February 16th; Plattsburg (N. Y.) 
Republican, quoted by St. Albans (Vt.) Democrat, March 6th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 227 

and the wanton outrages so frequently perpetrated by them 
upon the feehngs of the people of those States," were perhaps 
the only means that could possibly produce dissolution.^^ 

But through all the condemnation of those who were al- 
leged to have produced the dissension, through the avowals of 
friendship for the assailed, ran a strong vein of determination 
to uphold the maxim of Andrew Jackson, "The Union must 
and shall be preserved." And how should this be done? The 
undertaking was two-fold: "1st, Against the sectionalism of the 
republican party; 2nd, Against the disunionism of the Southern 

States — the product, in a good degree, of that republican sec- 
tionalism. "^2 



" Pennsylvanian, April 9th. 

" New York Evening Express, January 10th. 



CHAPTER III 

The Political Conventions of 1860: A Breach in the 
Democratic Ranks 

When congress assembled on December 5, 1859, the house of 
representatives immediately set to work to elect a speaker. 
Barely less than a majority of the members were republicans; 
their candidate for speaker was John Sherman, of Ohio, one of 
the sixty-eight who had indorsed^ Helper's Impending Crisis. 
The democrats far outnumbered any other faction of the "oppo- 
sition," but were by no means numerous enough to elect one 
from their number without the help of the others who opposed 
republicanism. The nominations were made and balloting began 
at once, but, as was expected, no candidate could secure enough 
votes for election. As the republicans had almost a majority, 
under normal conditions they would have had sufficient votes, 
aided by a few from the smaller factions, to elect the man of 
their choice. But the insuperable obstacle to the election of 
Mr. Sherman was his commendation of a book which advo- 
cated the most extreme measures against slavery. An average 
of about one ballot a day was taken for almost two months with- 
out result. Before the end of January, many people in the 
North began to upbraid the republicans for refusing to permit 
the election of anyone save a man who had given his indorsement 
to a work which the Southerners regarded as a violent attack 
upon their constitutional rights. 

The republicans accused the democrats of trying to bring 
about a dissolution of the union by not allowing a speaker to be 
elected by the most numerous party. The democratic press rush- 



' Sherman showed in the House on January 20th that he did not 
sign the indorsement in person, but that, without reading the book, he 
had allowed a friend to attach his name, and indicated clearly that he 
did not approve of all of the book after reading it. In a letter dated 
January 16th, his brother, William T. Sherman, soon to become famous 
in the army, said to him, "I received your letter explaining how you hap- 
pened to sign for that Helper Book. Of course it was an unfortunate 
accident." W. T. Sherman Manuscripts, Congressional Library. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 229 

ed to the defense of their members, and showed that the demo- 
crats could not prevent a choice if they desired, as they were 
in a decided minority ; and at the same time told the republicans 
of the house that in trying to foist upon that body one of the 
sixty-eight who had countenanced what many considered a seri- 
ous affront to the South, they were guilty not only of a "studied 
design," but of a "deliberate overt attempt," to cause the seces- 
sion of a number of States.- The Cheshire Republican, (Keene, 
N. H.), after recounting the familiar charges against the repu- 
licans, added : 

And then, as if this indignity were not enough, the Republicans have 
put forward for Speaker in Congress— the third office in the United 
States— a man who has indorsed with his own hand the very measures 
carried out by the invaders of Virginia. And they refuse any compro- 
mise. The South must take this man, who recommends insurrection and 
murder, or nobody. ... It is under these irritating circumstances 
that Members of Congress from the South declare that unless they can 
be protected in their Constitutional rights — that if a party is coming 
into power that wholly ignores these rights, and recommends an invas- 
ion of them — that if this party is determined to thrust upon them d 
Speaker, as a National representative of their policy, who indorses a 
forcible overturning of their institutions— rather than submit to the rule 
of such a party they will leave the Union and take care of themselves! 
This is the feeling of the South, and they would be cravens if they 
possessed any other. This is the disunionism that the Black Republicans 
talk about as existing at the South. It is a disunionism resulting en- 
tirely from their own fanaticism, and disposition to infringe upon the 
rights of others." 

Finally, on February 1st, William Pennington, a New Jersey 
republican who was not one of the sixty-eight, was chosen speak- 
er on the forty-fourth trial. This long dispute in the national 
house of representatives crystallized antagonism between the 
parties, and caused the presidential nominations to be awaited 
with more intense interest. 

The democratic party had much reason to believe that th(? 
nominee of their convention, which was to meet at Charleston, 
South Carolina, late in April, would be successful in the Novem- 
ber election. This hope was partly justified by the favorable 



*£. g., Reading (Pa.) Gazette and Democrat, January 28th. 
^January 25th. The Pottsville (Pa.) Democratic Standard, on the 
28th, contained an editorial quite similar to this one. 



230 Smith College Studies in History 

local elections from Maine to Pennsylvania in the spring of 
1860; though it was also evident that they could not win without 
a contest hitterly fought. The two leading parties were as hos- 
tile toward each other as political factions could well be, while 
the feeling between the North and the South was still more pro- 
nounced. Between the latter in the houses of congress there 
were "no relations not absolutely indispensable for the conduct 
of joint business," wrote Senator J. H. Hammond, of South 
Carolina, just before the meeting at Charleston. "No two 
nations on earth are or ever were more distinctly separate and 
hostile than we are," he remarked in the same letter.'* 

Denunciation of their opponents by the press on both sides, 
though lessened in volume, was by no means at an end. The 
question of slavery was agitated so rigorously by the republicans 
that it led one writer to say, "It is very evident that the break- 
ing-up of the Union is the real aim and object of the anti- 
slavery party, and that nothing could so disappoint them as the 
settlement of the slavery question ;"5 and another declared that 
the "Blacks" knew the South loved the union, but as they were 
determined to trample on its rights, in order "to cover up their 
iniquity and hide their corruption," they were crying through 
the land that it was "the South, the South," that was "doing 
the mischief — hallooing, 'Thief, thief!' with each a stolen negro 
under his cloak !"<^ Without a recognition of slavery by the con- 
stitution there could have been no union, and now if the North 
should persist in its course, it would "throw ofif the South from 
any further constitutional obligations. "■'' 

The members of the "opposition" did not deny that they dis- 
approved of the "sectionalism" of certain Southerners ; though 
they commonly added some such statement as, "But truth and 
candor compel us to hold Northern fanaticism. . . respon- 



*J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, vol. 
viii, p. 446. 

° New York Herald, February 24th. 

' "An Old Jeffersonian," in the Cheshire Republican, Keene, N. H., 
March 7th. 

' New Haven Register, February 25th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 231 

sible for all its fearful consequences."^ Senator Wigfall's 
statement that he thought "nothing better could occur than a 
dissolution of the Union," induced the Boston Courier to state, 
"So thinks Mr. Wendell Phillips. It is a comfort to find there 
are fools in Texas as well as in Massachusetts."'^ 

As may be inferred from what has been said, eac'h political 
party would certainly uphold its principles through the approach- 
ing contest in the strongest possible manner. Although Senator 
Seward of New York was generally believed by republicans 
to be the man most likely to receive the nomination at their 
Chicago convention, the powerful New York Tribune threw its 
strength against him, and many weaker journals followed in its 
train. The adherents of Senator Douglas were firm in their 
censure of the Lecomptonites for trying to put forward a candi- 
date who should uphold the doctrine of congressional interven- 
tion in behalf of slavery, the anti-Lecompton faction maintain- 
ing by their "popular sovereignty" theory that the territories 
should decide for themselves whether or not they should have 
slavery. The Lecompton democrats were by no means agreed 
as to whom they should put forward. The abolitionists made 
no nomination in 1860. The constitutional-unionists, who won 
to themselves the more numerous element of the old Whig 
party, nominated John Bell of Tennessee for president and Ed- 
ward Everett of Massachusetts for vice-president. 

The first national convention to assemble was the democratic, 
at Charleston, South Carolina, April 23rd. It had long been 
obvious that Senator Douglas w^ould be among the leaders in the 
popular estimation of the convention. It was assumed by many, 
both democrats and republicans, that he was to be the nominee. 
The fact that some republicans made this assumption and seemed 
to manifest a desire for his nomination led certain of his demo- 
cratic opponents to contend that this was conclusive proof that 
he was not the man for the time; for "The Black leaders cer- 
tainly would not desire his nomination if they believed him to be 



Pennsylvanian, March 26th. 
March 24th. 



232 Smith College Studies in History 

the most formidable candidate that could be put in the field 
against them.''^'^ 

It was known that the platform upon which his supporters 
would endeavor to secure his nomination would be in substance 
the same at that upon which Mr. Buchanan had been nominated 
in 1856 at Cincinnati, upholding "popular sovereignty." But 
during Buchanan's administration, the Dred Scott decision had 
been rendered, sustaining the position of the Lecompton faction, 
namely, that it was unconstitutional for congress to legislate 
against the introduction of slaves into any territory. Hence the 
South was anxious to take advantage of this supreme court de- 
cision in its favor, and incorporate the essence of it into the 
democratic platform. This effort found many approvers at the 
North, and as early as February 18th the New York Weekly 
Day-Book prophesied "an inglorious and overwhelming defeat" 
for the democracy if they should resort to the "compromising, 
double-dealing and popular sovereignty dodges ;" and further, 
on March 17th, asserted that if the Charleston convention should 
place the question openly and fairly before the Northern people 
and the party should meet defeat, the South might then, if it 
thought the danger was pressing, "refuse to recognize an anti- 
slavery executive." "Again, on April 7th. the same newspaper, 
after striving to show that the Dred Scott decision fully justified 
the Lecompton position, reminded its readers that Virginia gave 
the Northwest Territory to freedom, and that the non-slave 
States secured most of the Louisiana Purchase and all of Cali- 
fornia. It was not unjust, therefore, for the South to protest 
against being shut out from the common territory still remain- 
ing. Even an article in the Savannah Republican from which 
the following is an extract was characterized^^ in the North as 
"in the highest degree discriminating and just": "The South," 
said the republicans, "is resolved, firmly and unalterably, and by 



^^ New Hampshire Gazette, Portsmouth, April 21st. 

" By the Boston Courier, March 7th. The article in the Republican, 
however, expressed the conviction that the North was not so bitter 
against the South as was represented, and that the slavery agitation was 
largely by politicians for personal gain. 



Northern Opinion op Approaching Secession 233 

the unanimous voice of all her citizens, never to submit to an- 
other Federal discrimination against her on account of her insti- 
tution of slavery." ^ 

When the convention assembled it was quickly seen that the 
main fight was to center around the adoption of a platform. Of 
the committee on resolutions, seventeen of the thirty-three 
members were opposed to the position of Douglas, and, instead 
of agreeing upon a platform, the committee presented majority 
and minority reports. The majority declared that a territorial 
legislature had no power to abolish slavery in a territory ; the 
minority practically reaffirmed the Cincinnati platform, but 
stated in addition that the democratic party was pledged to 
abide by the Dred Scott decision, as it had been boldly asserted 
■ by Douglas that this decision and his "popular sovereignty" doc- 
trine were entirely consistent. His claim was that although by 
the dictum of the court the right of the master to his slave in a 
territory could not, under the guarantees of the constitution, be 
divested or alienated by an act of congress, it necessarily re- 
mained a barren right unless it should be protected by local 
legislation; or, in other words, that if the legislature of the 
territory should oppose slavery, a law of congress would avail 
nothing. The Douglas platform, however, was adopted by a vote 
of 165 to 138, whereupon the delegation from all of the Gulf 
States, together with those from South Carolina and Arkansas, 
formally withdrew from the convention, protesting against its 
action. By a rule of the convention two-thirds of the whole 
electoral vote was necessary to nominate. Several times Douglas 
received more than a majority of the total vote but never the 
required two-thirds. As it was manifestly impossible to reach 
any result, the remaining delegates adjourned on May 3rd to 
meet in Baltimore the 18th of June. The "seceders" meanwhile 
had formed themselves into a convention, but now terminated 
their proceedings by a resolution to meet again at Richii^ond on 
the second Monday in June.'- 

Before the meeting at Charleston the democratic factions had 



" Based largely on Rhodes. 



234 Smith Coi^lege; Studies in History 

been so thoroughly occupied with assaiUng the common enemy 
that they had found Httle time to quarrel among themselves; but, 
from the beginning of the sessions of the convention, dissensions 
within the party were much in evidence. Some declared they 
would support no candidate but Douglas unless some one not 
already prominently named should be nominated. ^^ Others who 
had proclaimed their intention to support any person chosen at 
Charleston, veered strongly to the side of Douglas, and pro- 
nounced those who prevented his nomination to be a "rule or 
ruin" faction.^-* Immediately after the adjournment the par- 
tisans of Douglas mightily rebuked the "seceders," declared that 
no other democrat could win, and said that by his nomination a 
complete victory was assured. 

The importance of this convention for our purpose is chiefly 
that it was the entering wedge alienating the Southern democrats 
from those who had stood with them at the North. The Southern 
"bolters" were spoken of by some Northern democrats as un- 
doubtedly designing to "destroy the Union. "^-^ It was urged 
that a majority of the democrats should not permit themselves 
to be thwarted by a "factious minority, "^"^ and the demands of 
the "seceders" were called "preposterous and absurd."^" The 
Newport, R. I., Advertiser, which on May 3rd showed that the 
South had "often yielded to Northern pressure for the sake of 
peace and good neighborhood," and that every compromise into 
which the South had entered had "resulted in a sacrifice without 
an available equivalent," just a week later classed the "irritated 
secessionists of the South" with the "fanatical nullifiers of the 
North," holding that they agreed in nothing else than the destruc- 
tion of the government. And there was rejoicing that the South- 
ern "disunionists," even though aided by certain Northern "dema- 
gogues," were not able to defeat the "wishes of the people. "^^ 



"£. cj., Philadelphia Press, April 30th. 

"£. g., Luzerne Union. Wilkes-Barre, Pa., April 25th, May 2nd. 

"H. g., Pittsburgh Post, May 9th and 17th. 

"Rochester Union and Advertiser, May 7th. 

" Utica Observer and Democrat, May 8th. 

" Boston Herald, May 5th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 235 

The "seceders" were accused of "eating their own words" 
by repudiating the Cincinnati platform. Other forms of com- 
plaint made against those who withdrew were, that by demand- 
ing the intervention of congress in the territories they were com- 
mitting themselves to the doctrine of the republican party it- 
self ;^^ and that certain Southern leaders had long desired a 
Southern confederacy anyway, and that this was an auspicious 
time for the culmination of the plan. This plea was based large- 
ly upon a letter written some time before by William L. Yancey, 
of Alabama, in which he said, "At the proper moment, by one 
organized concerted action, we can precipitate the cotton States 
into a revolution." The separation of a portion of the Southern 
delegates would have claimed more consideration and sympathy 
if Yancey had not been a leader of the movement.-^ 

Still another argument, which, however, was made much 
more freely eight months later, was that, although ^he democrats 
of the North had long stood by the South in its fight for the 
maintenance of its just claims, now when their common oppo- 
nent was in a majority in many States, certain enthusiastic South- 
erners asked more than should properly be granted. While it 
was conceded that the "Southern delegates at Charleston. . 
believed not only that they were right, but that the safety of 
their institutions and the integrity of their principles were in- 
volved and could only be preserved by the course they adopted," 
their action was criticised as "strangely inconsistent, ungrateful 
and unjust, as well as suicidal."-^ The democracy of the North 
"had sacrificed much," but as the republicans had already won 
the house of representatives and might win the senate and the 
executive also, if Southern leaders should turn their backs upon 
their Northern friends, the sacrifice would be vain.22 After 
the nomination had been made the latter part of june,^-'^ the 
Manchester, N. H., Union Democrat, admitting that its politi- 

''Nashua (N. H.) Gazette, Alay 10th. 

""Reading (Pa.) Gazette and Democrat, May I2th. 

'' Providence Post, Mav 2nd. 

"Ibid., May 9th. 

'' Infra, pp. 



236 Smith College; Studie;s in History 

cal sympathies were "almost wholly with the South," and that it 
believed the people of that section had never asked more than 
they were clearly entitled to until the meeting of the Charleston 
convention, declared that if the South could appreciate the "blind 
fanaticism, the unreasoning prejudice, and the knavish dema- 
goguery" its Northern well-wishers had been forced to encounter, 
even though the protection of slavery in the territories might be 
constitutional, the South would not press a "theory" which so 
menaced the democracy of the North.--* Some members of the 
"opposition," while considering the South the injured party, were 
convinced that the feeling between that section and its Northern 
friends had been changed; and that if the "interventionists" 
should fail and should attempt a dissolution of the union, it 
would not be permitted.--'^ 

A few democrats did not at this time take a firm stand on 
either side of the controversy,^^ but most of those who did not 
support Douglas were ready to defend the "seceders." The 
convention had barely begun its sessions before it was announced 
that the voting down in committee of the Cincinnati platform at 
Charleston showed that the Southern elements were "determined 
to have a clear issue on the slavery question, as distinct as that 
which the black republicans" had adopted in their fraternization, 
and which was, in fact, the one great issue before the people.-' 
On May 4th, the day after the convention adjourned, there was 
much commendation of the stand made by the Southern demo- 
crats. ^^ For the South to present an unbroken column in de- 



"July 3rd. 

" Providence Post, June 29th. 

** The HarrisburR;- Patriot and Lbiioii, for instance, while manifesting 
no bitterness, merely hoped, May 4th, that the South would elect a 
more moderate set of delegates next time. 

"New York Herald, April 26th. 

** The Hartford Times, for instance, held it not at all unreasonable 
to accept the proposition of the Tennessee delegates to add to the Cin- 
cinnati platform a resolution to the efifect that the rights of neither per- 
son nor property of any citizen of the United States could be destroyed 
or impaired by Congressional or Territorial legislation." On the 10th, 
the Times deemed the demands of the South not unjust to the people 
of any portion of the union ; for they did not ask the North to take 
either a candidate offensive to them, or else nobody ; but they did ask 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 237 

fense of its constitutional rights was said to be the only way to 
stem the waves of anti-slaveryism ; and it was soon asserted that 
the position of the "seceders" was ''absolutely essential. 
to the safety, order and prosperity of Southern society;" and that 
the people of the South must have the same benefits from the 
government as the people of the North, or the union "must be 
. . . and should be overthrown."-^ 

The Nc-ci' Hauipshire Gascttc, Portsmouth, said : 

The position of the South is right. Indeed, we do not see how anyone 
not inherently an Abolitionist can take a different view of the subject. 

The whole question is very simple, and embraced in a small compass. 
The public Territories are common property, purchased by the common 
blood or common treasure of the nation. As such the North and South 
have equal rights in them while they remain in the territorial condi- 
tion. This the Supreme Court has clearly affirmed, and this, and simply 
this, the Southern representatives in the Convention asked to have plainly 
avowed in the platform.^" 

We have seen that Bell and Everett were selected as the can- 
didates of the constitutional union party. The nomination oc- 
curred on May 10th. Their newspaper supporters were not 
numerous, but among them were some of much prominence. ^^ 

The republican convention at Chicago was organized on May 
16th. In the East, the universal belief was that Seward would 



that the North should not force an offensive candidate upon them : "It 
is of no great consequence to Vermont and Massachusetts, and eight or 
ten other States, who the candidate is. They will go Black Republican 
anyway." 

^ New York Weekly Day-Book, May 5th and 26th. 

'"May 12th. The Concord, N. H., Democratic Standard, May 19th, 
was glad that Southern senators had indicated that the South was re- 
solved to stand upon the position taken at Charleston ; for "this is the 
true and only policy which the South can pursue. . . . Her claim is 
undoubtedly right and just, and cannot be denied without a violation of 
the true spirit of the compact of Union and an outrage upon justice. 
She can take nothing less without the sacrifice of both her rights and 
her honor." But, said tlie Standard, her battle must be fought "in the 
Union. Then she will have friends and supporters, and, if need be, 
swords and bayonets in every State of the North, to fight her battle." 

"' E. g., the New York Evening Express, which on March 29th said 
that tens of thousands "never Democrats, and never wishing to be," 
knew not wliere to go or what to do, after the names of these nominees 
\yere announced supported them with vigor, holding tliat all other par- 
ties were "sectional"; the Boston Courier, declaring on April 2nd that 



238 Smith College; Studies in History 

be nominated, and when, among others, the wires mentioned 
Lincoln, New England, especially, could scarcely believe he 
would be a serious contender. It knew little of his stalwart 
worth and discerning intellect, though everywhere those who 
knew him were convinced of his honesty of purpose. When he 
was nominated on the 18th the republicans of the West were 
wild with delight, while those of the East tried to make the best 
of what most of them regarded a poor selection. A few demo- 
crats knew more about the republican candidate than some of 
his own supporters knew. The Boston Herald, for instance, con- 
sidered the nomination in many respects strong and difficult to 
defeat: "Those who flatter themselves that the Democrats are 
to walk over the Presidential course with ease will find them- 
selves mistaken. "32 But most of the "opposition" were sincere 
in deriding the nomination, agreeing that it was a "blunder and 
a fatal one."^^ Lincoln's views were said to be "as extreme and 
ultra as any Sewardite or Abolitionist" could desire; and it was 
feared that because he was honest and sincere, he would be 
more likely to carry his extreme views into effect. •'^^ If he 
should be elected, the train would be laid "to consummate a pro- 
ject of which Harper's Ferry was only a faint prelude. "■''^'' 

When the Baltimore convention assembled on June 18th the 
Richmond meeting had already adjourned to await its action. 
After wrangling for several days, the Baltimore group split 
again and more delegates withdrew, joining those who had ad- 



the "basis of the [constitutional union] party is devotion to the Consti- 
tution and the Union, and consequently, opposition to Republicanism," 
on May 11th accorded Bell and Everett the highest praise; the Troy 
Whig on tlie same day greeted the nomination with "honest admiration," 
adding, "Here was indeed a National Convention — the first and last of 
the year." 

''May 19th. 

'^ The Utica Observer and Democrat called it "the most extraordinary 
nomination ever made . . . the result fills the [republican! party 
witli ill-concealed disappointment and resentment, and destroys its last 
hope of success." Substantially the same opinion was expressed by the 
Dover, N. H., Gazette, May 26th, with the proviso, "If Mr. Douglas 
is nominated by the Democracy." 

'' Harrisburg Patriot and Union, May 19th and 30th. 

^ Ulster Republican, Kingston, N. Y., May 30th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 239 

journed from Richmond. The supporters of each side grew 
violent in their mutual denunciations, w'hile some sought to steer 
between the two factions, or vented their spleen against the 
republicans. It was charged that a nomination made by either 
the "regulars" or the "secessionists" would partake more of a 
sectional than a national character.^^ 

As far back as January, the vice-president of the United 
States, John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, had been suggested 
as the next president. ^'^ The convention of the "seceders" 
adopted the Southern platform and nominated Breckinridge as 
Buchanan's successor. After the withdrawal from the original 
Baltimore meeting, the remaining delegates nominated Douglas 
with but thirteen dissenting votes. "The Democrat party is de- 
stroyed," commented the New York Herald; "There is not the 
remotest visible ghost of a contingency for a reunion of the 
belligerent elements of this revolutionary convention." The 
Herald then predicted defeat and disgrace for its party, and 
presumed that the republican leaders were "parceling out the 
offices and spoils of the next administration.""^ 

The democratic party was now thoroughly disorganized. The 
assaults of its two branches upon each other were quickly re- 
newed. Some of the Douglas adherents, however, showed no 
animus toward the other wing, conceding that Breckinridge was 
a "gallant and popular man;" but they supported Douglas be- 
cause he was the nominee -of the "original, or regular" conven- 
tion. ■''^ Other Douglas supporters were almost as severe as the 
republicans in attacking those who sided with Breckinridge, de- 
claring that the Baltimore secession was a "piece of humbug- 
gery;" that its ultimate object was a dissolution of the union; 
that those who supported Breckinridge had gone out of the demo- 
cratic party; and that it was just as bad to vote for Breckin- 



Buflfalo Evening Post, June 23rd. 
"£. g., by the Pottsville (Pa.) Democratic Standard, January 14th. 
"'New York Herald. June 22nd and 25th. 

"'£. g., Hartford Times, June 25th. The Times later supported Breck- 
inridge. 



240 Smith College Studies in History 

ridge as for Lincoln, for, "in either case, Lincoln wins."^*^ Some 
used even stronger language, speaking of the "abettors of treason 
against- the Union, who marched out of the Convention," and 
believing Mr. Breckinridge "too sound a Democrat ever to ac- 
cept such a nomination."'*^ And a Douglas ratification meeting 
held at Faneuil Hall, Boston, resolved, "That we are opposed 
to agitators and disunionists at the North — and secessionists and 
disunionists at the South. "■*- 

Those who determined to aid Breckinridge gave as their 
reason that his was the only platform which guaranteed to each 
State its full privileges, and that his standard recognized the 
constitutional rights of all the people and States of the union — 
a platform national and not sectional — the only platform which 
was truly national.'*^ This faction was milder in its opposition 
to the Douglas followers than the latter toward their former 
comrades. 

With the democracy thus divided, it was almost universally 
admitted that the next president could not be from that party, 
though a few of the more optimistic ventured to claim eventual 
success for their respective candidates. Besides the republicans, 
the only persons who seemed to derive joy from the split in tlie 
democratic ranks were the constitutional-unionists, who thought 
that the situation ofl:'ered every encouragement "to arouse the 
spirits and waken the energies" of their party.'*^ 

Various possible solutions of the predicament in which the 
democrats found themselves were offered. A number deemed 
the unconditional withdrawal of both the Breckinridge and 
Douglas tickets the most practicable and successful arrange- 



*" The quotations are from the Providence Post, June 27th. 

"£. g., Pittsburgh Post, June 25th and 26th. 

*'' Boston Herald, June 30th. 

*" B. g., Concord (N. H.) Democratic Standard, June 30th. The 
Norristown (Pa.) Register, June 26th, sought to justify itself in sup- 
porting Breckinridge by declaring his election was the surest way to 
defeat the "treasonable doctrines" of the Chicago convention. 

** Boston Courier, June 25th. The Troy Whig (same date) was per- 
suaded that this party would carry a number of states. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 241 

ment that could be made.'^^ Another suggestion was that the 
easiest way to end the conflict was by a "dissolution of the Con- 
federacy.""*'^ But the greatest number sought to remedy the 
difficulty by a union of the two democratic factions. Innumer- 
able editorials to this effect appeared within a week of the noni- 
nations, showing that it would be worse than nonsense to run 
two electoral tickets. 

For the time being, at least, there seemed to be one bright 
spot in the turmoil of party strife. All of the presidential can- 
didates and practically all of their supporters were now loud 
in their expressions of attachment to the union. This led at 
least one editor to assure the country that it might rest easy as 
to the future of the United States.'*'^ During the past winter dis- 
unionists were numerous, but with the "irrepressible conflict" 
inside the democratic party the nation was stronger than ever, 
and all hands were fighting to stay united.'*^ It was insisted 
that the "perils of the Union" bugbear had served its purpose. 
The government was never so safe as now : and with everybody 
resisting the charge of disunion as a grievous calumny, it might 
be hoped that the union would "go over to another century at 
least."49 



' B. g., Hartford Times, June 28th. 

Letter from John Mitchel, New York Irish-American, June 30th. 
Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper, July 4th. 
New York Herald, June 30th. 
New York Bveniiig Post, June 30tli. 



CHAPTER IV 
Before the Election oe Lincoln 

Among the reasons offered as to why the country should 
rest in peace with reference to the future was that "a taste of 
the fat things of pubhc place" should "operate as soothingly 
upon the radicalism of the Republicans" as it had often done 
upon their opponents; and in this case the South would have no 
cause to secede. ^ The New York World quoted each of the four 
presidential candidates, showing that they were all thorough- 
going union men and always had been.- Breckinridge, the one 
most commonly accused of being a "disunion" candidate, was 
reported as saying: "Instead of breaking up the Union, we in- 
tend to strengthen and to lengthen it." So the World thought 
that for the nation to tear itself into pieces was an absolute im- 
possibility. If the statements of the candidates were true, al- 
though each of four parties talked and acted as though the sal- 
vation of the government depended upon its own success, the 
country would be safe, whoever was elected.-^ 

Shortly after the Baltimore conventions, however, Senator 
Sumner had made a speech in the United States senate on the 
"Barbarism of Slavery," parts of which one of his republican 
colleagues pronounced "harsh, vindictive, and slightly brutal."'* 
July 11th he delivered a lecture in the same tone at Cooper 
Institute, New York, which was characterized next day as "cal- 
culated to exasperate the South. "^ A young congressman from 
South Carolina, Lawrence M. Keitt, published a "somewhat 
bombastic disunion letter" in the Charleston Mercury in reply 



* Philadelphia Public Ledger, June 25th. 

'June 27th. 

'Pittsburgh Post, July 21st. 

'' Rhodes, vol. ii, p. 477. 

^ This lecture seems to have encouraged some Northern democrats. 
For instance, in the Pierce papers, Congressional Library, is a letter 
from "H. Fuller, New York Hotel, dated July 12th, which says, "there 
is no possibility of defeating Lincoln — unless the . . . Democracy unite, 
or unless Sumner's violence produces a reaction." 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Sece;ssion 243 

to such attacks on Southern institutions ; and the battle was on 
again. A few days after Keitt's letter was published the World 
still saw no reason to retract any part of the congratulations 
indulged in on the apparent oneness of sentiment as to the value 
of the union, as it believed Keitt would wield no more influence 
at the South than Wendell Phillips and other prominent 
disunionists at the North. ^ But there was another element in 
the situation : nothing had resulted from the suggestions for 
democratic fusion, without which a republican triumph was al- 
most certain.'^ 

The Douglas adherents now began to suggest that Breckin- 
ridge should resign his candidacy.^ The reasons for such sug- 
gestions were several. Favorite charges were, that the upholders 
of Breckinridge had repudiated the principles — "popular sover- 
eignty" especially — upon which he had been elected vice-presi- 
dent in 1856;" that he was the representative of Yancey and the 
disunionists;^*^ that some of the Charleston "seceders" preferred 
a disruption of the convention with an ulterior view to a disso- 
lution of the union ;^^ and that the real object of the Breckin- 
ridge movement was, in fact, to defeat Douglas, elect Lincoln, 
and so pave the way for a Southern confederacy.^- Some North- 
ern democrats were even less moderate in their assaults, add- 
ing to the term "disunionists" such expressions as "frauds," 
"renegades," and "betrayers. "^^ 

The friends of Breckinridge came vigorously to the rescue. 
Their chief efforts were made in attempting to show that their 
candidate was not a disunionist. They branded such accusa- 



"July 25th. 

' New York Times, July 25th. 

* E. g., Wilkes-Barre Luzerne Union, August 1st; Providence Post, 
August 11th; Nasliua (N. H.) Gazette, August 23rd. 

"New York Irish- American, August 11th; Manchester (N. H.) Union 
Democrat, September 25th. 

" Utica Observer and Democrat, July 10th. 

" Albany Atlas and Argus, July 30th. 

^''Suffolk Democrat, Babylon, L. I., August 10th. 

"Hartford Weekly Post, August 18th; Vermont Patriot, Montpelier, 
July 21st; Boston Herald, October 23rd. 



244 Smith College Studies in History 

tions as "preposterous"^'* and "malicious. "^^ The Breckinridge 
faction did not deny, however, that certain persons who advo- 
cated a possible withdrawal from the union stood with them in the 
presidential contest ; but they made the counter-charge that many 
prominent disunionists sided with Douglas, and asserted that 
there would be no disunionism anywhere if everybody could se- 
cure justice in the union. ^'^ They further insisted that the very 
reason for their desire to elect Breckinridge was to prevent dis- 
union.^" 

Sone of this faction, in addition to claiming that there were 
secessionists in the opposing wing of the democracy, held that the 
"sectionalism" of Douglas was almost as pronounced as that of 
Lincoln himself, because an overwhelming majority of the people 
in one-half of the nation considered him well-nigh as dangerous 
as a republican would be.^^ They declared that his partisans 
were responsible for the disruption and probable defeat of the 
democratic party. ^'^ The chief argument against him by his 
democratic opponents was as follows : "It is the duty of the 



"Boston Press and Post (semi -weekly edition of the Post), Au- 
gust 6th. 

"* Republican Farmer, Bridgeport, Conn., October 19th. A nun^ber of 
journals which did not support Breckinridge denied charges of disloyalty 
imputed to him. E. g., Boston Courier, September 8th : "No candid per- 
son could imagine Mr. Breckinridge himself to entertain any views in- 
consistent with true and generous patriotism" ; New York World, Sep- 
tember 7th: "No candid man, if intelligent, has ever for a moment dis- 
trusted Mr. Breckinridge's loyalty to the Union." 

^®H. g., Pcnnsylz'anian, August 10th; Norristown, Pa., Register, Au- 
gust 21st. 

" B. g., Pennsyh'onian, August 28th. 

"Concord (N. H.) Democratic Standard, July 21st. The editor of 
this paper, Edmund Burke, was — according to the Dover. N. H., Ga- 
zette, November 3rd — "actually the head and front — the father — of . . . 
the Breckinridge party in New Hampshire." The Granite State Monthly 
(Concord), for March, 1880, has an article on Burke which shows he 
was a native of Vermont, was a prominent member of congress from 
New Hampshire for several terms, and that in the national democratic 
convention of 1852 the choice of Franklin Pierce as democratic candi- 
date was due more largely to him than to any other individual. For 
correspondence between Burke and Pierce in 1852, just before and just 
after the nomination of the latter, see American Historical Review, 
Vol. X, 110-122. 

"Concord, N. H., Democratic Standard, August 11th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 245 

Government to protect all property. . . the Constitution rec- 
ognizes slaves as property. The Government officers, then, must 
protect the citizen in holding his property;" but Mr. Douglas 
holds that the territorial authority may take precedence over that 
of the nation; therefore Mr. Breckinridge and his friends sus- 
tain the doctrine of the government, while Mr. Douglas does 
not.2o 

The Douglas men, however, were as zealous in defending 
their favorite as in assailing others. Some of them had but little 
disposition to complain at the "few democrats" who refused to 
take a stand for the Illinois senator.- 1 Others considered his 
chances so much superior to those of Breckinridge that this 
fact perhaps inclined them toward moderation. "A careful sur- 
vey of the field," said one paper, "indicates that Mr. Douglas' 
prospects of an election by the people are comparatively cer- 
tain."22 

But most of the "opposition" agreed that without some sort 
of union of the two factions the success of Lincoln was assured. 
The constitutional-unionists were convinced that all those who 
opposed Lincoln should unite on John Bell ; the Douglas and 
Breckinridge adherents of course preferred uniting on their 
respective candidates ; but not all the members of any faction 
approved of fusion on any other condition. Within a few days 
after the conventions, there were meetings in various places held 
for the purpose of ratifying the nominations, and at some of 
these gatherings disturbances occurred at which indignities were 
ofifered to one or the other candidate, intensifying the hostility, 
rendering fusion more difficult if not impossible. 

Not a great many of the Douglas branch of the democrats 
were willing to unite.^^ Most of them declared they would not 
join forces with "Yanceyites,"-"* "seceders," "nullifiers." Others, 



=" Hartford Times, August 25th. 

"H. g., Cheshire Republican, Keenc, N. H., July Ihh. 

"Utica Observer and Democrat, July 31st. 

^Exceptions were, the Norwich (Conn.) Aurora and the Newport 
(R. I.) Advertiser, the Albany Times, desiring union, claimed political 
independence, though leaned decidedly toward Douglas. 

*■' See e. g., Rochester Union and Advertiser, September 7th. 



246 Smith College; Studies in History 

while avowing their intention to do all in their power to defeat 
Lincoln, announced that their policy would be precisely the same 
toward Breckinridge, displaying greater energy, perhaps, against 
the latter.-^ Yancey was branded as "the American Catiline;"-*' 
and Douglas himself opposed compromise with "those who 'had 
bolted the nominations." In a speech at Erie, Pennsylvania, he 
said, "Lincoln and Breckinridge might fuse, for they agree in 
principle ; I can never fuse with either of them, because I dififer 
from both. "2" 

Realizing their weakness at the North, the followers of Breck- 
inridge there were almost unanimous in favor of a union. Sev- 
eral newspapers, which seemed really to prefer Breckinridge 
from the first, waited for some weeks before taking a direct stand 
for him, hoping that the breach would be closed in the mean- 
time.-^ A very few, however, of his most strongly pro-Southern 
supporters were for a time inclined to scout the idea of uniting 
the factions. 29 

Little was accomplished by the advocates of fusion. In 
four States, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, and New 
Jersey, arrangements were made by which all democrats might 
vote a union ticket, but, although it aroused some hope for a 
time, the scheme amounted to nothing except in New Jersey.^*' 
The method of the fusionists was commonly a gentlemen's agree- 
ment that if it appeared that Douglas would w'm in a State 
electoral college, then the fusionist electors of that State were 
to vote for him, but for Breckinridge if it appeared that he was 
to be the winner. In New Jersey it seems that the Douglas sup- 

-^ B. g., Dover (N. H.) Gazette, August 4th. 

•° Worcester (Mass.) Daily Times, October 4th. 

" New York Tribune, October 3rd. 

"'* The New Haven Register for instance, which did not declare for 
Breckinridge until August 31st, pleaded for union well into October. 
The course of the Hartford Times and of the New London, Conn., 
Daily Star was much the same. The Hudson County Democrat (Ho- 
boken, N. J.), though preferring Breckinridge, never took a definite 
stand until fusion was assured. 

■" £. g., the Day Book on July 14th declared "the National Democracy 
need no union or compromise with the followers of Mr. Douglas." 

""See Harrisburg Patriot and Union, September 4th; Ulster Repub- 
lican (Kingston, N. Y.), October 10th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 247 

porters voted for their own three men on the fusion ticket, but 
refused to vote for the four representing the other parties in 
the agreement. The result in that State was three electoral votes 
for Douglas and four for Lincoln.^ ^ 

It has been shown that the charge of disunionism was fre- 
quently made against the adherents of Breckinridge, but that 
during the weeks immediately after the nominations at Balti- 
more few persons were found to advocate a separation. From 
that time throughout the period preceding the presidential elec- 
tion, a part of the republican press was given to ridiculing the 
idea of secession as a hoax. Even in July, on the eleventh of 
the month, the Tribune dubbed the threats of a dissolution "as 
audacious a humbug as Mormonism, as preposterous a delusion 
as Millerism." And only four days before the election the New 
York Evening Post continued in the same strain, giving as its 
reason the weakness of the South : "Without any intention to 
disparage the bravery or the loyalty of our Southern brethren, 
we do not hesitate to express our belief that the little State of 
Connecticut could sell the secession States the arms and equip- 
ments they would require in case of disunion, and then send 
armed men enough down to take them back again without ex- 
hausting her resources as much as one year of independence 
w^ould exhaust the seceders." 

In the period preceding the election, the question of coercion 
was broached again. There was no lack of persons who con- 
sidered seceders as traitors,^^ and who advised that Keitt's "gas- 
conade of secession" should not be taken seriously; for if South 
Carolina should "undertake to repeat in 1861 the tantrums of 
1833," she would be "treated as she was then — kindly but firm- 
ly."^-'' A number of Douglas papers pronounced the coercion of 
a State proper and constitutional,-^^ although a part of the same 



" E. D. Kite, The Presidential Campaign of i860, pp. 223 and 233. 
'^£. g., Providence Evening Press, October 27th; Woonsocket Pa- 
triot, November 2nd. 
''Tribune. July 2-Sth. 
'* £. g., Philadelphia Press, October 1st. 



248 Smith College; Studies in History 

papers admitted that resistance was probably a matter of self- 
preservation with the South. '"^^ 

On the other hand, a few republicans at that time preferred 
to see the South withdraw without opposition, rather than resort 
to war.^^ For the government to allow this would be extra-con- 
stitutional ; but, if they are bent upon it, "Let them go," said one 
editor, "unharmed, unwhipt, unhung; and joy go with them, if 
this be possible. Were a single State or a dozen States to se- 
cede, with the approbation of their people, w^e see no better way 
than to suspend at once all federal laws within their jurisdiction, 
and put them on the footing of most favored foreign nations.^' 
Even the Tribune, giving up for the time its policy of force, on 
November 2nd assured the South that 

Whenever any considerable section of this Union shall really insist on 
getting out, we shall insist that they be allowed to go ... so let 
there be no more babble as to the ability of the Cotton States to whip 
the North. If they will fight, they must hunt up some other enemy, for 
we are not going to fight them. If they insist on staying in the Union 
they must of course obey its laws; but if the People (not the swashy 
politicians) of the Cotton States sliall ever deliberately vote themselves 
out of tlie Union, we shall be in favor of letting them go in peace. 

The next day Editor Greeley commented as follows on a recent 
argument by Charles O'Conor : 

Proving the right of secession on the part of tlie South, he [O'Conor] 
goes on to justify her, and declares that if she does secede she should 
be permitted to do so. On this point, at least, we are happy to agree 
with him, and when she goes we shall be happy to reprint the letter as 
presenting a sensible view on that branch of the subject. 

Some of the above statements were perhaps made with the 
belief that the South was insincere in its avowals of a probable 
disunion, or that only the politicians favored it, and that they 
could not carry the people with them. For instance, at a repub- 
lican meeting in Middletown, New York, State Senator Henry 
B. Stanton said that the "fire-eaters" had never meant what they 
threatened, and that they would not have dared to execute their 
threats, even if they had been in earnest. ^^ The opinion was. 



'"£. g., Pittsburgh Post, October 18th. 

'"£. g., Philadelphia Daily Nezvs, August 20th. 

" Watchman and State journal, Montpelier, Vt.. November 2nd. 

'° October 12th. Reported in Tribune, October 17th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 249 

often expressed that the purpose of disunion talk was merely to 
win votes, "^^ or that it was only the periodical clamor of dema- 
gogues of both sections.-*^ 

One of the most plausible reasons why certain people in the 
North did not believe that there would be an attempt at secession 
was that just before the election the charge of disunion was com- 
monly repelled by all the political divisions. According to the New 
York Weekly Journal of Commerce, there was no one who, on 
being confronted with the charge, did not avow "the most peace- 
ful and friendly disposition. "^^ Even the Breckinridge men 
showed "a good deal of sensitiveness at the charge of being 
a disunion party."-*^ Therefore the country was believed to be 
"perfectly safe" after the election. ■*•* Assurances were plentiful 
during September and October that no one need be solicitous 
about the safety of the country after November 6th, for then the 
talk of not submitting to a republican president would wane and 
die.'*^'' Some persons, in fact, held that the only thing neces- 
sary to quiet the South was the election of a republican presi- 
dent.46 

But others were not so sure that an era of peace would be- 
gin early in November, and some business men were very nat- 
urally tired of having their business go awry periodically on ac- 
count of political troubles. They were anxious to put the ques- 
tion to a final test. If a convulsion was probable, it was high 

■""See e. g., Germantown (Pa.) Telegraph, October 31st; Worcester 
(Mass.) Palladium, October 31st; New York Daily Advertiser, Novem- 
ber 1st. 

"£. g.. New York Shipping and Commercial List, October 20tli. 

*' September 20th. 

" Tribune, October 30th. 

■" New York Shipping and Commercial List, October 13th. The Bos- 
ton Transcript (October 22nd) did not believe the South "would act 
except at the bidding of a palpable grievance" — which it had not, said 
the Transcript. 

''£. g.. New York IVorld, August 13th and 28th; New York Even- 
ing Post, October 31st and preceding dates; St. Albans, Vt., Messenger, 
November 1st; Philadelphia Daily Nezvs, November 2nd; Atlantic 
Monthly, October, 1860, p. 501 ; Springfield, Mass., Republican, Novem- 
ber 3rd. 

'"£. g., Worcester Palladium, October 31st; Kingston, N. Y., Demo- 
cratic Journal, same date. 



250 Smith Coi^IvEge; Studies in History 

time the experiment was made so as to settle the question 
once for all.^*^ 

From the beginning of the canvass httle doubt had existed on 
the part of the repubhcan managers that their candidate would 
carry all the more important Norti.^rn States but Pennsylvania 
and Indiana. After these two States had gone republican by 
large majorities in their contests for governors in October, the 
"opposition" was well-nigh una'^imous in admitting that Lincoln 
would be elected President the next month. When it was thus 
evident that what they had so long regarded as a possible dis- 
aster was actually upon ther-, appeals were made to the South 
not to take any precipitate s ^)s. It was acknowledged that the 
times looked "somewhat ominous of trouble ahead," but it was 
insisted that propositions for disunion were premature : first, be- 
cause Lincoln could not be otherwise than cautious ; second, the 
best interests of the South might be preserved in the union. "*^ The 
people of the North could not justify a dissolution, some of the 
democrats asserted, until all constitution barriers were swept 
away.'*" A policy of delay, at least, was asked by the Harris- 
burg Patriot and Union; for, it asserted, the election itself of Lin- 
coln would not justify secession; but if he should attempt to put 
into practice the "irrepressible conflict which he . . . de- 
clared," it would then be for the States whose rights were as- 
sailed to determine how far they would submit. •'"''^ If the South 



" Speech by Hon. Thomas Williams, at Pittsburgh, September 29th, 
in The Negro in American Politics, pp. 29-30, pamphlet in Columbia 
University Library. Similarly. Germantown, Pa., Telegraph, October 
31st ; Providence Journal, November 6th ; Boston Journal, November 6th. 

" Philadelphia Public Ledger, October 18th, November 6th. 

'^Columbian Weekly Register, New Haven, November 3rd; but after 
this statement it added, that the idea of using force to keep them in the 
union was preposterous. Cf. Hartford Times, October 27th: "Seces- 
sion ... is not now essential to the preservation of the rights of the 
Soutli" ; Boston Courier, November 25th : "The election of any person 
whatever" affords no "cause for other than Constitutional opposition to 
his administration." The Providence Post, November 1st, contended 
that secession should not be demanded and could not be allowed. 

'"" Harrisburg Patriot and Union, September 22nd. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 251 

would wait a year or so, it would see that Lincoln could not 
carry out his program.-'' ^ 

But we have said that although the Breckinridge followers 
were more commonly accu^^^d of disunionism than any other 
group, they and all the other parties repelled the charge. Never- 
theless, it is true that leading men in the South were outspoken in 
upholding the expediency of secession in case Lincoln should be 
elected. ^2 This was not denied b^ ':heir Northern friends, who ad- 
mitted that these Southerners wanted the union dissolved if a re- 
publican should be president. W'l^' then, it was asked, was the 
charge of disunionism repudiated I the Breckinridge faction, to 
which most of these Southern men belonged? Because, was a 
reply, 

no man, or set of men, are disunionists, who contend for Constitu- 
tional rights. Those who wish to override the Constitution and the laws 
are the disunionists. There are some 'of the Southern people who 
threaten resistance, in case they are denied their plain and just rights. 
They say they will resist an infraction of the Constitution, by which it is 
sought to degrade them; but this does not make them disunionists, for 
all they ask is their rights.''^ 

Such Southerners could not properly be classed as disunionists 
when Northern leaders declared there was a "higher law" than 
the constitution, and squared their action accordingly; for the 
"inevitable result must be, either the triumph in the end of those 
who abide by the Constitution, or of those who repudiate it. If 



'^Ibid., October 22nd. 

^" Even at this, it was claimed by the Providence Post, October 30th, 
— and the Post was among those journals which were determined there 
should be no secession — that "During Mr. Polk's administration . . , 
more disunionism was preached in New England in three weeks than 
has been preached in the South in the last three months"; also, that as 
late as 1854, great meetings in Providence and other Northern cities 
said that the repeal of the Missouri Compromise would justify disso- 
lution. 

"Concord (N. H.) Democratic Standard. October 20th. The Man- 
chester (N. H.) Union Democrat, October 30th and November 6th, gave 
as reasons why the slave-holding States wanted to secede: "There is a 
'conflict' against them which is 'irrepressible.' We do not expect the 
slavery controversy to cease while the Union continues. We know it 
will not— they know it will not"; tlie whole course of the republicans "is 
insulting and aggressive. . . Our Southern friends feel it to be so, 
and know it will continue so." 



252 Smith College Studies in History 

the latter succeed, then it is useless to blind our eyes to the fact 
that a REVOI^UTION is at hand— the TREATY between the 
two sections of the Union is CANCELLED."^^ 

In some cases the North as a whole was blamed for estrang- 
ing the South from the union. There was complaint because 
"the Northern people sold the slaves which they and the British 
people imported from Africa," and then, "after pocketing the 
money," they turned around and denied "the title of the pur- 
chasers."^^ The trial of the South from Northern aggressions, 
it was said, were "far more aggravating than all that the colo- 
nies ever endured from England,^*^ and ten-fold more than any 
people in Europe would endure from equals;" the men of the 
North "would themselves resist a tithe of such offenses. "=5' 

It was more usual, however, for the "opposition" to restrict 
their attacks to the republicans. It was "simply absurd to say 
that disunionism" was "confined to Southern fire-eaters," con- 
tended one Douglas supporter; for "Northern sectionalism, as 
manifested by the Black Republican party" was as hostile to the 
union, in fact and in purpose, as Southern sectionalism was or 
ever had been. And there was this difiference between the two, 
which was "greatly against the former": Lincoln and his sup- 
porters were not complaining of wrongs done to them at their 
own homes and firesides ; but, continued the writer, they 

claim the right to make a code of laws for the South, not only in the 
States, but in the Territories, which shall control or prohibit slavery. 
Now, Yancey and Keitt and the worst of that class, do not propose any 
reform in the internal laws of the free States— they do not presume to 
tell us how we shall treat our apprentices or workmen, or how much 
we shall pay them for their labor— they do not prescribe for us any 
new regulations about our property nor anything of the kind. They 
are acting purely on the defensive against Lincoln, and Fred Douglass, 
and Seward, and Giddings, and all the rest who "revere the memory of 
John Brown, of Ossawatomie I""" 

James W. Gerard, a prominent New York lawyer, in a speech 



"Troy Daily Whig, November 5th. 

"^ Pcnnsylvanian, October 18th. 

"Similarly, Jersey City American Standard, November 3rd. 

^^ Pennsylvanian, October 19th. 

"■ Pittsburgh Post, October 10th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Se:cession 253 

at Cooper Institute, compared the republican party abusing the 
South to a husband thrashing his wife, "morning, noon and night. 
She appHes for a divorce, and the husband says, 'I don't want to 
be separated from my wife. I only want to control her in her do- 
mestic relations. "^^ The attitude and aims of the party were 
referred to as subversive of the constitution of the country^^ 
and of "our present organized Union of sovereign States."^'' 

The Southern people, however, were naturally irritated by 
these "constant goadings" and felt that they would rather go 
out of the union than support an administration whose prin- 
ciples were at war with their rights. But if the nation should 
come to an end in that way, it would be due to the "insidious 
work" of republican "sappers and miners" who had done so much 
to "shake the pillars of the edifice" that sustained the republic. *^^ 
This "war to the knife" against the South was "a policy so fla- 
grantly at variance with the spirit of the Constitution, and so 
destructive of the very idea of a confederation of States, that 
the party adopting it" was "entitled to be considered the party 
of disunion and revolution with more justice than the most 
rabid secessionist of the South."*'- 

The republicans had never carried a national election. If 
Lincoln should be elected, what results might reasonably be ex- 
pected to follow? Senator Wilson had declared that if his party 
should "take possession of the government," their power would 



°* New York Weekly Day-Book, October 13th. Mr. Gerard was a 
grandfather of our recent ambassador to Germany. 

°° Letter in Portland, Me., Eastern Argus, written anonymously at 
Gorham, Maine. 

""Troy Whig, October 26th. On October 23rd, the IVhig said that 
the only reason the South wanted to secede was that it was robbed of 
its rights in the union ; and on November 6th : "Every Republican 
speech, every Republican journal attacks the South. . . . Our South- 
ern brethren are 'slave drivers,' 'men stealers,' 'an oligarchy,' — no epi- 
thets are too bad for them." 

"Speech of Col. J. W. Wall, at Beverly, New Jersey; reported in 
Newark Evening Journal. October 30th. Even in June (28th) the 
Brooklyn Eagle had declared the objects of the Republican party were 
to "defy the Constitution, goad the South to resistance, and break up 
the federal compact." 

"" New York Herald, September 29th. 



254 Smith College Studies in History 

be so used that slavery should "not exist on this continent. "*^^ 
Unless they betrayed the masses who supported them, said the 
Providence Post, it would not be difficult, accordingly, to deter- 
mine what they would do if they held the reins of government. 
It added: 

They would appoint none but enemies of slavery to office. They would 
withdraw all that protection of slavery which the South now derives 
from the federal government. They would insist that the United States 
mail should be used in disregard of the local laws of the States. They 
would prohibit slavery in the Territories and in the District of Columbia. 
They would stand as a wall of fire against the admission of any more 
slave States. They would repeal the fugitive slave law. They would 
change the Supreme Court. They would bring the powers of the federal 
government to bear upon slavery in the States, at least so far as to 
greatly increase the dangers and disadvantages which now surround 
that institution. They would, in short, pursue such a course as would 
almost instantly unite the South against the General Government, and 
make a separation of the States the only remedy for civil war." 

Sooner or later, the South would be "insulted and attacked in 
her sacred rights in the institution upon which her prosperity, 
her very subsistence" depended,^^ and would be forcibly de- 
prived of rights held under the constitution.'"^ Thus the value 
of the Southerners' property would be reduced, their means of 
living diminished, and their very lives be put "in no questionable 
jeopardy."'''^ Moreover, they would be virtually excluded from 
any real connection or sympathy with the government of the 
country."*^^ 

Nobody accused the North of wanting to secede. One reason 
why it did not, as presented by Colonel James W. Wall, in a 
speech at Beverly, New Jersey, was that no Northern States 
had any provocation to do so ; for no one could show where 
the South had "ever attempted to infringe upon a single guar- 
anteed Constitutional right of the North. But the Congressional 
page" was "blistered all over with just such attempts by the 
North against the South. "^^ The republicans did not threaten 



"' Weekly Journal of Commerce, October 18th. 

•"October 24th. 

'"^ Pennsylvanian, July 23rd. 

"" Boston Courier, November 2nd. 

"' Ibid. 

°* Utica, N. Y., Observer and Democrat, October 27th. 

'* Reported in Newark Evening Journal, October 30th. 



Northern Opinion oi? Approaching Secession 255 

to secede, showed an opponent : "They only desire to subjugate 
the South;""^ and "to destroy," another added, "if resistance is 
offered, men of their own race . . . If the South can by 
secession, escape the doom threatened . . . would it be 
strange if they should do so?"'i The indignation of the South 
was, therefore, pronounced just, and of a kind which honest 
men could not condemn ; ' 2 for the Southerners saw that "to sub- 
mit quietly" to the "gross assumptions and insults" of the re- 
publicans "would leave them little better than a conquered peo- 
ple."'3 

The result of the local elections — the republican victory in 
Pennsylvania, for instance — was held as equivalent to an edict 
by the North to the effect that after the victory was completed 
"the Southern States must either submit or array themselves 
against the Union. "'^ If the republicans should attempt to 
carry into action the principles openly avowed by "the itinerant 
orators and demagogues of the party," no other alternative 
would be left for the South "but a base, ignominious surrender 
of their constitutional rights as coequal States or secession from 
the Union. ""5 Caleb Gushing, of Massachusetts, brigadier- 
general during the Mexican war, and attorney-general in Pres- 
ident Pierce's cabinet— declared that the Southerners would 
not "passively submit to be conquered subjects of New England." 
If they did, "they would be recreant to the blood of Washington, 
of Henry, of Carroll, of Rutledge ; they would be unworthy 
of the name of Americans.""*^ They were not a "set of pol- 
troons" who would "tamely submit to any outrage" that might 

'° Providence Post, September 8th. 

"Pittsburgh Post, October 30th. 

''^ Pcnnsylvanian, October 23rd. 

"Troy Whig, October 30th. 

"Pittsburgh Post, October 12th. 

""Citizens of Maine," writing in Weekly Journal of Commerce, Oc- 
tober 25th. Similarly, the Buffalo Daily Republic, October 27th: "The 
events_ or contingencies which would warrant a Southern or Northern 
State in going out of the Union are numberless, and many of them are 
likely to be inaugurated should the country ever be cursed by a Lincoln 
Administration." 

'"From an address at Tremont Temple, Boston. Reported in Week- 
ly Day-Book, October 6th. 



256 Smith College; Studies in History 

be perpetrated upon them.'" The coming election, moreover, 
might prove that the South, having lost all confidence "in a 
North insensible alike to the sanctity of the Constitution and the 
warnings of loving but wronged brethren," would avoid the 
threatened evil in the only way it could be done — by secessionJ^ 
And the New York Herald thought the moment of Southern 
"submission or secession" was near at hand."^ 

But to what extent would the South be justified in attempt- 
ing to forestall such blows as so many of those who lived in the 
North predicted? As far back as August, a New Englander 
held that "the inauguration of Lincoln would inevitably lead to 
an attempt to destroy the system of labor existing at the South," 
believing that the Southern planters might "not await in quiet 
the blow now being aimed at their lives and fortunes. "^"^ Short- 
ly afterwards, W. B. Lawrence, former governor of Rhode Is- 
land, wrote Governor Sprague of the same state, that if a re- 
publican were elected "with the avowed intention of creating a 
servile war" and doing the other things which the "opposition" 
averred that the republicans would do, "no humane man could 
object to their anticipating the fatal blow, not only by refusing 
obedience to the federal authorities, but by even invoking— as 
did our ancestors of the Revolution— foreign aid."^! It was time 
for the Southerners to take measures for self-defense when they 
saw the aggressive strides of a party whose leaders had indorsed 
a book which proposed to put weapons into the hands of their 
slaves, and which made "a virtue of assassination. "•'^- Nor was 
it to be expected that people who had been stigmatized as 
"worse than cut-throats and villains" would "submit to every- 

''Democratic Standard, Concord, N. H., October 27th. The Cheshire 
Republican, Keene, N. H., October 31st, was not surprised that some 
Southerners talked of resistance: "We thnik they feel and act just as 
any other section would feel and act with such threats continually meet- 
ing them through the pulpit and press." 

''^ Pennsylvanian, October 16th. 

"October 13th. 

'° Newport, R. I., Advertiser, August 29th. 

"New York Herald, October 6th. 

''Albany Times, October 20th. 



Northern Opinion of Approaching Secession 257 

thing."^^ If the situation were to be reversed, and a president 
should be elected under whom no Northern man, "without dis- 
honor, could accept a place in the administration of the govern- 
ment . . . the blood of Bunker Hill would be aroused," 
and there would be "not only threats but their execution."^'* 
And another writer in Rhode Island proclaimed that if a policy 
were about to be imposed on the voters of that State, the possible 
tendency of which was to "subject their property to destruction, 
and their wives and daughters to horrors, to which death itself 
would be infinitely preferable," they would not quietly wait for 
an overt act, but would bestir themselves before the evil was 
consummated past all remedy.^^ 

Thus, we see that the outburst of secessionism in the South 
immediately after the John Brown raid was condemned by most 
republicans, but extenuated by most persons opposing republi- 
canism ; that the democrats and constitutional-unionists held re- 
publican teachings — and especially the indorsement of Helper's 
book — largely responsible for the raid, and for disunionism in 
the South ; that republican insistence on the election of Sherman 
for speaker of the house, although Sherman had commended 
The Impending Crisis, was considered by the democrats as a 
further insult to the slave-holders; that the refusal of most 
Southern democrats to accept in 1860 their party platform of 
1856 led to a split in the democratic party which practically in- 
sured the election of Lincoln; and that many Northerners de- 
clared the South would be justified in refusing to await an "overt 
act" at the hands of the republicans. This was the beginning of 
a permanent breach in the democratic ranks, which was healed to 
some extent late in 1860, but widened after South Carolina's se- 
cession ordinance, and again after the firing on Fort Sumter. 



*^ Norristown, Pa., Register, November 6th. 

^^ Luzerne Union, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., October 31st. 

*'' Newport Advertiser, October 31st. 



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